Just Another Wargames Blog

Two New Rule Sets

2012-01-12T19:32:00.004-05:00

Once again, I indulged in my addiction to rules. My latest two purchases are Harpoon 4 modern naval rules and Combat Cards. This isn't meant to be in depth reviews of these two, but just some quick thoughts on them. Of course, I have yet to play either of them, so my comments are based on several reads.

Harpoon 4 by Clash of Arms:
These are probably the most complex and detailed rules I now own. I have read a lot about them, both pro and con. The price was a little high for what I like to pay for rules, so I was hesitant to get them. I do not regret buying them.

As many have commented on before, Harpoon more of a simulation than a game, but I was not as overwhelmed as I expected. What makes them complex is that there is very little abstraction. To change course, ships turn they way they do in reality. To launch or land aircraft, your carrier must be oriented in the right direction and moving at the right speed. To detect an opponent, you need to take into account variables such as sea state, and the horizon. Despite all of this, they are pretty well written and are pretty well organized.

The game is what I would call time based, rather than turn based. Unlike most rules where time is to various degrees an abstraction, events in Harpoon occur pretty much in real time, down to the minute. Players write down their orders. Everything is then resolved in terms of time. Ships, planes, and all weapons except for gunfire are moved at a particular distance per period of time. Therefore, it seems like timing is everything in this game. Detection is also critical to this game. Having a referee would be a big plus. In fact, the authors highly recommend one. Not only could the ref prepare all of the pre-game setup, but can handle such things as hidden movement and reconnaissance.

There are a few areas in the mechanics that seem a little vague. For example they talk about plotting a series of firing solutions for a submarine torpedo attack, but its unclear, at least to me, if the number you get is the actual percent chance to hit. What I would change, or rather add too, is more examples. They have an example of a battle between US and Iranian surface ships at the beginning of the rules, but I would like more examples to illustrate specific aspects of the game, like submarine warfare or air combat. They provide some training scenarios, but I would prefer examples.

Information on ships, aircraft, radar, and weapon systems are all found in a separate data annex. It seems very complete, EXCEPT; there are no stats for Chinese ships! It’s weird because they have the stats for PRC weapons and electronics, just no ships. However, they do provide info on how to calculate damage ratings for any ship. One of the nice things about any naval wargame rules is that if you can find data on a ship, you can add that ship to a particular rule set. You can't do that so easily with air combat rules where performance of a jet cannot be necessarily derived from stats.

In terms of solo playability, it does have its advantages. If you think about it, you have all the time you want to calculate everything necessary to complete a turn. Not so if you have an actual opponent, especially one who is either a casual wargamer, or is rather impatient and the idea of writing out orders bothers him. The game is even set up to play as a log of events. You need to write down your orders for each turn. You can document each battle and keep a detailed account of what happened. This is nice if you want to write up an after action report.

Combat Cards by Tactical Assault Games:
Another blog had an after action report using these rules and highly recommended them. The impression I got was that they seemed to have some similarities to I Ain't Been Shot Mum! (IABSM). Combat Cards (CC) are card driven and the game they played was at the company level. I am more interested games above the company level. Looking at TAG’s web site, they made the claim that Combat Cards were scalable. You could use them at the platoon level up to the divisional level. That really peaked my interest. They also focused on modern warfare. The rules are free, but you have to buy the cards. To be fair, I have not read these rules as much as I have Harpoon. So my comments and opinions about them need to be taken with a grain of salt.

This game is different from IABSM. In IABSM, you turn a card to activate a specific unit. In CC, you can active any unit you want, but you must have a card to do a particular activity. For example, in order to perform any action for a given squad in IABSM, that squad’s card must show up. Once you activate that unit, you can have it perform any particular action you deem necessary. In CC, in order to perform an action like moving any particular unit, you must have a card that states that you can move (found on a card under the heading of ACTIONS). You are allowed to hold six cards in your hand, but if none of them allow you to move, you can’t move! There is another heading on each card called SITUATIONS. These allow you to respond to your opponent’s actions or allow you to do extra things that don’t fall under the category of actions.

Each unit is classified as one of several general categories. For example, the ARMORED category includes all tanks, mechas, or even massive armored creatures. These rules BTW, can be used for modern and sci-fi games. The general categories remind me a little of AK-47. Each category is rated as Light, Moderate, Heavy, and Very Heavy for purposes of attack and defense.

To resolve combat, you pull a card from your desk and read the combat results. The outcomes are ranked in order of increasing seriousness, from no effect to eliminated with several steps in between. The randomness of this outcome is modified by differences in attack and defense ratings as well as other factors, like range and cover. These modifications raise or lower the outcome level. There isn’t much related to morale, except the intermediate effects of combat include shaken and falling back. To recover from these effects, just like other things, you must have the right card in your hand.

The game has a length of 90 minutes. This would be a big plus when running a campaign. Overall, I think CC would work well for a solo game. It gives a solo player some flexibility to decide what to do with the various units, but still maintains a fair amount of unpredictability.

So, in the course of a week, I’ve read rules on both sides of the spectrum as far as complexity. I am still leaning toward IABSM but I think Combat Cards might be a contender for the rules to use for the land-based portion of my campaign. I am still pretty undecided about naval rules. I might have a post on that later.

Happy New Year!

2011-12-31T19:42:00.003-05:00

I don't have much to say other than to wish the folks that read this a happy New Year.

As usual, nothing happened gaming-wise during my annual Christmas trip to Chicago to visit family. I was coming off of a head cold when we got there. I was hoping to have a game involving my nephews, my wife's cousin who was visiting from Utah, and my friend Karl. I found out that Karl was sick, my wife's cousin wasn't there long enough, and I spent most of my time driving here and there doing errands and being a chauffeur. We almost came up with a skirmish game using my younger nephew's Star Wars LEGOs figures, but it never happened due to me running around doing errands, and the fact that my nephews were in school up to the Friday before Christmas. My younger nephew and I did go to Games Plus, but that was the extent of things.

Hopefully, 2012 will be fruitful gaming wise for everyone.

Stay Creative

2011-12-05T08:37:00.002-05:00

I saw a post on TMP this morning that led me to this blog: sidneyroundwood.blogspot.com. There are a lot of good suggestions about how to stay creative in the gaming world. Sometimes, I think that its not so much staying creative, but 1) finding the time and energy to express the creativity and 2) finding the resources needed to take the next creative step.

Issue #1 is pretty straight forward. I think a lot of people have more ideas than they have time to carry out. Plus, often at the end of the day, I know I am too tired to do anything.

For issue #2, I am not talking so much about the financial side of the hobby. I am talking more about the ability to learn what I need to learn to accomplish what I want to do. For example, all the way back in the 1970s, I thought it would be great to sculpt my own figures. I gave it a try, but the results were awful. Had I had some brains back then, I would have looked into taking a sculpting class to learn techniques. Nowadays, I still have a yearning, but the educational resources are rather spotty for what I want to do. You might be saying, "oh, but there are all kinds of sites now for sculpting minis!" Well, yes, if I wanted to do larger scales then I am all set, but I want to do microarmor. For example, I really want a model of the Australian Bustmaster APC. No one yet makes one. Oh, to be a fly on the wall of GHQ, just to learn how to make wheels in 1/286 scale! I hope this doesn't sound like a complaint, because its not. It just seems like even with all the information now out there, there are still some "holes" that have not been filled. Its more of a frustration than anything else. Yes, I could sit down and probably work it out, but that goes back to issue #1, the time to actually do it.

The Valley of Death AAR

2011-11-26T15:37:00.028-05:00

Friday, while my wife was participating in Black Friday shopping madness, my daughter and I had another small battle involving the humans of Yogurt Town and the xenomorphs (i.e. Aliens). The same very simple rules that we used in a previous battle were again used. In this game, the xenomorphs were allowed to be resurrected back at the opposite end of the table until the humans reached their objective. The humans' objective was to make it to the outpost building on other side of the table. Just before the battle started, my daughter decided there should be additional goals in the form of "secret maps" that were placed in various places and had to be recovered by the humans. Here is an overview of the gaming table:

22.7.234: Outpost 24 had failed to report in for last 48 hours. Militia Command, based in Yogurt Town, decided to send out a patrol to find out what the situation was at Outpost 24.

Peering down the road that that led through the valley, things looked very quiet:

The unit proceeded down the road. Captain Joe and Sergeant Sue was in the lead, followed by two sections of four troopers each. Accompanying the unit was a mysterious rock-like being known as Rocky. He (she?) was their guide for this mission. Rocky's weapon was an organic laser on top of his head. For gaming purposes, he got 2 shots.

The first encounter took place just before entering the valley. Two xenomorphs popped out, but they were quickly dispatched by weapon fire. This will be the best shooting for the militia the entire game. My daughter consistently rolled misses much of the game.

As the militia unit pressed on, more xenos waited in ambush, waiting for the signal by the xeno perched on top of the giant skull rock carving on top of the opposite hill.

Not only was the xenomorph a spotter, but it also was the guardian of one of the secrete maps.

The xenos sprang out! It was a fierce fight. Bad shooting rolls allowed for the xenomorphs to quickly close for hand-to-hand combat. One militia trooper went down.

Rocky and Captain Joe seemed to score the best rolls. The attackers were finally defeated.

After a lucky shot that knocked off the xenomorph from its perch, Rocky, Captain Joe, and Sergeant Sue climbed up the steep mountain.
After defeating another xenomorph hidden behind the skull carving, Sergeant Sue retrieves the secret map hidden in one of the eye sockets.

The militia then moves toward the outpost where more xenomorphs spring out.

It was another fierce fight, and another trooper went down. Sergeant Sue manages to find another secret map hidden underneath the scout car parked next to the outpost building.

Captain Joe and Rocky search the outpost, but there's no sign of anyone! No bodies to be found, no signs of struggle. Where did they all go? To be continued.......

Rocky was sculpted by my daughter. Here he is after the battle, posing by some shrubs.

Thoughts on Solo Mechanics

2011-11-17T13:50:00.007-05:00

WARNING:
THE FOLLOWING ENTRY CONTAINS MORE THAN THE USUAL RANDOM MUTTERINGS THAT ARE FOUND ON THIS BLOG

As I get closer to the point of gaming the first land battle in the Gambusian campaign, I need to start thinking about the mechanics of a solo game. For rule sets, I have several in mind. They are:

A Fist Full of TOWs version 3 (FFT)

Cold War Commander (CWC)

Modern Spearhead

Pz8 1975-2010

I am not going to review any of these rules, but more than likely, I will probably use one of the first two, simply because I have studied them more. However, the Pz8 series of rules are pretty simple and straight forward. Plus, this recent version of their modern rules have been expanded a little more in terms of weapon types, so I might consider them, too.

None of these rules are really set up for solo gaming. One could argue that the rule set that has the most potential for solo gaming is Cold War Commander. So, I am going to use one of these rules, but in conjunction with some sort of solo mechanics. I need the solo mechanics to do the following:

1. allow for a random sequence of events

2. allow for units to react to circumstances

After reading a number of solo websites, articles from the Lone Warrior, and looking at various mechanisms of rules (not necessarily microarmor rules) that supposedly can be used for solo gaming, I felt like throwing up my hands! Actually, I've come up with three possible systems. They are:

1. I Ain't Been Shot Mum! system (IABSM).

2. Two Hour Wargames' reaction system (THW).

3. A overly complex algorithm of my own design, which I am no where near finished making.

I have studied the THW reaction system quite a bit, but recently I have been looking at various aspects of the IABSM system, particularly the use of activation cards. What I am working on now is to merge parts of IABSM and THW.

The Plan:
I plan to use unit activation cards and blinds similar to what is done in IABSM. Each activation card will represent a company. Within each company are platoons. In both FFT and CWC each stand of infantry and each vehicle represents a platoon. As each company gets activated, the members of the company can do various things, move, shoot, whatever. In CWC, units can keep doing things until they fail a die roll. I could do that, but my goal is to remove as much of my own control over things. This is where the THW reaction system will come into play. Based on the situation, the units will react in different ways. I have not worked out the reaction system, but here is an example of what I am thinking about. Lets say there is a recon company ahead of the main body probing for enemy units. The recon company comes near a blind (a hidden enemy unit). There is a table to determine if enemy units are spotted or not. I look up the appropriate numbers and roll the dice to see if it spotted the enemy. Based on success or failure, I then consult the algorithm below:

If nothing detected, then on a D6:
1-3 move half move forward
4-5 move full move forward
6 halt

If enemy spotted, then:

If spotted at close range:
1-4 fall back to nearest cover
5-6 engage enemy

If spotted at medium range:
1-5 fall back to nearest cover
6 engage enemy

If spotted at long range:
1-4 fall back to nearest cover
5-6 halt

The reaction system in addition to using the activation cards, will allow me to have less control over the various units and keep me from being biased.

More 15 mm Medievals

2011-11-15T15:08:00.006-05:00

Other than painting up a few figures from Splintered Light, I have not done a whole lot of work on my fantasy/medieval figures recently. I found some more shots of various 15 mm figures that I painted about four years ago:

Above are some late Medieval/early Renaissance heavy cavalry from Mirliton. They are from their Later Swiss and Burgundian Wars series, but I can't remember which catalog number. As I said before, I am not really into Renaissance figures, but these guys have a sort of Albrecht Dürer thing going on and spoke to me saying, "scruffy, battle-weary lancers for hire," especially the guy on the left. Mirliton puts in a lot of detail in their sculpting. The unfinished base is made from polymer clay.

The laddies above are Feudal Castings Highland archers with claymores. Feudal Castings are now produced by QRF Models. My historical knowledge of Feudal Castings is now fuzzy, but I think they came out in the early 90s. They don't have quite the detail that we see now in a lot of 15s. None the less, they do the job. I like the idea of having archers that can both shoot and be willing to mix it up in hand-to-hand combat. The claymores come separately. As I recall, they were very, as the British say, fiddly to get them glued onto their backs.

Housing for the Masses and Other Terrian Pieces

2011-11-12T21:16:00.008-05:00

I completed these a couple of weeks ago.

Huts

Closeup of Huts

I am trying to get things together for the first major battle of my Gambusian campaign. I needed a bunch of huts to make a large town. They are the same design as those that I posted way back in 2009. I think scale creep might have set in. I tried to make them the same size as the originals, but they look a lot bigger. It may be the acorn tops. These are a lot larger and steeper than the original ones.

I also made stab at an improved defensive position and barbed wire obstructions:

Improved Position with Infantry Stand

Section of Barbed Wire

I like the way the barbed wire section turned out. Its easy cheesy to make, too! The improved position...not so much. I wanted to make some sort of infantry defenses that are a step above foxholes, but not as permanent as trenches or bunkers. Something along the lines of the dreaded German machine gun nest that is in the final climatic battle scene of many a WWII movie. The idea is to be able to insert an infantry stand in it. My first criticism of it is that the sand bags are way bigger than I wanted them to be. The Sculpy was just not in a cooperative mood. Second, I am not too crazy about the squared look, but I sort of accepted that is how it would have to look, given that I wanted to put an infantry stand in it. Also, the cardboard base warped a little, but that is not a big deal. If I could do a better job on the sand bags, I would be a lot happier with how it turned out.

I am still trying to figure out how to make a marker for foxholes and for mine fields. I don't think it will be hard to do the mine fields. The foxholes may be another story. I've received some good suggestions on the Yahoo! Microarmor Group and on the Angel Barracks forum. One suggestion is to stick some figures into clay. It sounds good, but I don't feel comfortable about "sacrificing" some figures to represent a foxhole markers, nice as it might look. I might just end up using little markers that say "foxholes" on them. Boring, but they would get the job done.

Veterans Day, the real 11/11

2011-11-11T11:37:00.002-05:00

This is just a quick post to thank all of the veterans out there who, through their sacrifice, allowed us to remain free. Although I have never had the honor to serve in the military, I am proud of my father, uncle, and grandfathers who served.

11/11/11: Mark Your Calendar!

2011-11-08T13:09:00.004-05:00

I'm sure you've seen it on CNBC, FOXNews, and read about it in the NY Times, but in case you haven't, November 11th is Solo Wargaming Day. Unfortunately, I will have to delay my celebrations a day. Too many family happenings occur on the 11th. The big question now is, what to game on this holiest of holy days?

Happy to be Home

2011-11-08T09:15:00.003-05:00

I got back Sunday night from my paleontology meeting in Las Vegas. It was a very good meeting. There were a lot more interesting talks than I expected. Over the years, there have been fewer and fewer fish talks at SVP, but this year there were a good number. There were several symposiums that were interesting. The best part was that I got see a lot of old friends.

From a gaming standpoint, there isn't much to say. Its been 20 years since the last time I was there. Besides being incredibly expensive (I paid $10 for a hamburger), it seems now that a lot of casinos are linked by underground walkways. You don't need to go outside at all! It would make for a good sci-fi, dungeon-crawl sort of game. Also, the place has a slight feel of a sunnier version of Bladerunner.

To Blog or Not to Blog?

2011-10-30T23:36:00.003-04:00

Its been a sort of hell for the last two weeks. Forget any sort of quality hobby time. I've been trying to get a poster done for my trip to the annual Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meeting, before I leave Tuesday. I'm not going to go into details, but everything and everyone seems to be conspiring to keep me from finishing the darn thing. Well, its 11:41 pm. I am nearly done with the poster, expect my co-author, being his usual overly-anal self, sent me a bunch of revisions on it. A bunch of picky stuff that no one is going to notice. For God sakes, man, its just a poster!!!!

In between working on the poster and working on every other thing that I seem to have to do that isn't related to the poster, I've been toying with the idea of splitting off my imaginary world of Gambusia onto its own blog. Imagi-Nation blogs are in lately. They started off as being exclusively in the 18th century realm, but now are very popular for the Banana-Republic/Developing Nations types of games. I'm even starting to see them for sci-fi games. So why not join the bandwagon?

Pros:
1. it would keep me focused on one topic and allows me to track my progress on this particular aspect of my gaming/hobby activities.
2. it would keep readers who are interest coming back for more.
3. it can add more color to it beyond my model building and AARs (which are pretty much non-existent at this point).
4. for those very few who are more vested in the game, such as the General, they can keep up with any news and developments without wading through other stuff.

Cons:
1. I am not a prodigious blogger, but I don't like to have months go by without a post. Spitting blogs up might cause that to happen.
2. I am not sure if I would get new file space for pictures if I start a new blog. There are probably ways around that, like using something like Photobucket, but seems like more work.
3. I'm lazy. I like having everything in one spot. If I spin off one hobby project, I'd be tempted to spin them all off. Too much to keep track of!
4. this is a weird one, and I guess its due to the nature of my profession, but I like to classifying and categorizing things. It pissed me off when I go to a blog and they don't have Labels. Nothing bugs me more than having to open up a whole bunch of archives to find some topic. I think that if I split up things into separate blogs, there won't be enough topics to label.

Thoughts and comments are welcome.

I, Robot

2011-10-14T11:20:00.009-04:00

My daughter had a project where she was supposed to make a robot out of recyclable materials. Here is the result:

So shoot me, I helped her build the thing, but it was all her design. She told me what went where. My only original contribution to its design is the use of tennis balls for the shoulder joint. I manned the hot-glue run and she held things in place. The robot's name is Ellie. She is a dress-making robot. According to her designer, she can put out 14 dresses a day. She has a robot dog as a pet, but we didn't have time to build that. Maybe a future project?

Past 15mm Fantasy projects

2011-10-04T11:30:00.006-04:00

I was going through folders looking for some pictures for my research and I came across these two. I took them awhile ago. I thought I'd share them. First is a medieval/fantasy inn I made:

This building is over 10 years old. I made it when my wife and I lived in New York for a year while I had a temporary research position at the American Museum of Natural History. Its loosely based on a building I passed by one evening on my way home. When the weather was nice, I'd hike from my apartment on 161st Street in Washington Heights down to 81st Street, where the AMNH was. After work, if I wasn't working too late and my wife was out of town on business, I'd go explore the city on foot. I think I was in better shape back then than I am now because I walked so much. Anyway, on one of my adventures, I spotted a building that looked like an old inn. I made some quick sketches of it and then built it when I got back to our apartment. The main floor is of polymer clay, including the door. The second floor is cardstock, with the timbers being wooden coffee stirring sticks. The fancy windows are window screen. The flagstone paving are broken up egg shells. My pride and joy, and what makes this such a "Manhattan" original is that the shingles, both on this building and the one next to it, are made of discarded subway pass cards! You could find billions of them strewn around in subways. I still have a bunch of them. The building might not be exactly 1/100 scale. It might be more suited for 20mm figures, but it does the job.

This second picture is more recent. I think I finished them and took the picture about four years back:

He is a Demonworld general from their Empire range. I am not a big fan of Renaissance armor and warfare , but I kind of liked him. I envision him as a veteran mercenary general. I figure that mercs are always going to have the best in armor and weaponry because its their profession. He has been highly successful to the point where he can name his price for his services and can afford fancy armor. His standard bearer is a Essex mini whose catalog number I can't remember. I designed the flag in Adobe Illustrator and then printed it out on a laser printer.

Terror of Tiny Town

2011-10-03T21:20:00.005-04:00

Two quick shots of Rebel Minis' Earth Force Mk.III Support HAMR suit. Normally, I'm not really a big mecha fan. To me, they don't make much sense as weapon. Nonetheless, I've been gravitating towards them for my sci-fi armies. They look like they mean business. I like the combination of missiles and gatling guns. I didn't know to paint it, so I just painted it green followed by a wash of black mixed with Future Acrylic. I tried to weather it by dabbing it with a sponge that had Vallejo's gunmetal gray, but you can't really see it too well except for on the feet.

No, I still haven't finished with its base.

"Billy, who's your little friend behind you?"

A Second Try at a Home Made Hex Mat?

2011-09-22T15:54:00.005-04:00

As I mentioned last week, I got my hex mat from Hotz Matt. I still have not had a chance to use it. I don't regret getting is, but I feel the need to triumph in making my own hex mat. My costly failed attempt using a pre-made hex template still nags me. As an update to the story, my daughter "borrowed" the 4' x 4' interlocking foam mats and built herself a stuffed animal storage box with them. In addition to my Hotz Matt, I wouldn't mind having a mat in black for starship combat.

Pahoota, over at his Solipsist Gaming blog site describes a clever technique for making a homemade hex mat. The boundaries of Pahoota's hexes are a little different. They consist of equilateral triangles with concave sides. These represent the points were three circles of equal diameter come together:

If you keep adding on more circles, what you will get are hex boundaries:

You get the idea.... For circles, I thought I would try using soda bottle caps. They are consistent in diameter and easy to get. The trick will be to make sure the three bottle caps line up properly so that you get an equilateral triangle. Playing around with some soda bottle caps, it is not easy to get them to line up just so.

Once again, another project to work on.

A Fun Idea

2011-09-21T12:41:00.006-04:00

Last night my daughter and I read the Dr. Seuss book, McElligot's Pool. I vaguely remember reading it. Not one his best, but not bad. Anyway, what do I spot? Some of the Good Doctor's crazy architecture! I've thinking of building some structures for 15mm sci-fi games. I'm not sure about the style, and I don't want a village made solely out of yogurt containers. Why not have buildings that are as wildly imaginative as Dr. Seuss's? I need someone who doesn't have any preconceived notions of what a building on another planet should look like. The person just builds them however he wants. Who best to this task? My daughter, that's who! This weekend is supposed to be rainy. She has a swim meet in the morning, but after that, she will be itching for something to do. She likes doing what she calls "projects" while I work on my minis. Usually, she makes jewelry out of polymer clay, but she has constructed a model of the solar system and recently she made me an one-eyed space alien also using polymer clay. I think I can coax her into constructing a couple of buildings. I'll leave it up to her s to what she wants to build and what she want to use to build them. The only criterion is that they be 1/100 in scale, or at least don't look out of place when a 15mm figure is standing next to them. I'm sure she can come up with something. My only concern is that she will get bored and quite the project before it is completed. I'll give it a try and post the results.

Confessions of a Rules Junkie

2011-09-14T13:00:00.008-04:00

I’ve wanted to write this blog entry for some time now. I have not had the time, or I thought there were more interesting things to add to my blog, like my various projects and such. Well, after getting my latest set of rules in the mail the other day, I felt it needed to be done. "Hello, my name is Chris and I’m a Rules Junkie." I buy rules, I download free rules, I do whatever I can to obtain wargaming rules. For many of these rules, I will read once or twice and never look at them again.

Why do I do it?Why waste the time and money? I’ve thought about this long and hard.The main answer I can come up with is that I am on a spiritual journey to rules enlightenment.Or maybe its a quest for the Holy Grail, or the golden fleece of rules. My quest for the perfect rules has changed over time. Early in my gaming career, I was hung up on the technical side of things. Realism was everything. I wanted rules that would take into account the effect of an armor-piercing shell at a 38 degree angle on a side rivet of the turret of a German Pz 38(t) at 300 meters, or the accuracy of a 250 pound bomb dropped from a Douglas SBD dive bomber after it had been hit in the rudder by one shell of a 25mm AA gun fired by a jittery gunner from a Japanese destroyer that is turning to avoid the oncoming spread of six torpedoes, or the effect of a falchion when used as a thrusting weapon on chainmail covered by a gambeson…you get the idea.

Today, my journey is three fold. I am searching for rules that will give the most realism in command and control, that has the highest degree of playability without sacrificing a lot of realism, and/or can be easily used for solo gaming. If I hear any hints of rules whose mechanics are rumored to be tops along those lines, like a zombie to brains, I am drawn to them and compelled to order them. I try very hard to stick to my areas of interest, but if I hear of rules that are really outstanding, I will get them. For example, I read a post on TMP that polled readers as to which set of rules they thought were the most playable and fun. The consensus seemed to be the colonial rules The Sword & the Flame. So, what did I do? I ordered them! I don’t even play colonial games! But I had to see what these rules were all about. Maybe they would be the key to everything! This is it folks…it will all be revealed to me once I turn to page one and start reading! The quest is over! Well...no such luck. They look pretty good, there is raw material I can use, and if I were to get into colonial gaming, these are the ones I'd use, but did I really have to buy them? No, not really.

So far, I have managed to draw the line at board games and really expensive rules.I have read where people have adopted the rules or rule mechanics from various board games for the tabletop. I used to play a lot of board games long ago. Nowadays, the cost of board games is way too high for me to justify getting them, as tempting is it might be. Also, I will not pay for rules that are at or above the $50 range. Up to this point, I think the highest I’ve paid has been $40, and that was for only one set.

More and more, I will buy the pdf format to cut down on costs. I am still old school when it comes to rules. I don’t need hard covers or glossy photographs. I try to avoid rules where you have to buy a bunch of supplements to play the game. I only buy the latest edition of a rule set if I absolutely love the previous edition and there have some major changes that merit the new edition. I can think of only two or three sets of rules in my collection where I have more than one edition. I am sure I am not the only one out there that is a rules junkie. I do enjoy reading them, and with one or two exceptions, I have not been terribly disappointed by what I got. Nonetheless, I need to really put the brakes on the rules purchases. I really enjoy my hobby, but I don’t have unlimited funds. Plus, my carefree days of bachelorhood are long behind me. Many things like the need for bigger and better stereo equipment (that must date me!), or the purchases of music and movies are long gone. I’ve noticed that I don’t really miss those things. For example, my wife and I still happily use the same TV we got as a wedding present 13 years ago. Each Christmas time, we talk about getting a new TV, but we never do. With the mounds of minis that need to be painted and the collection of rulebooks, I think I can taper off the spending side of things a little and still have a happy hobby life. Maybe its about time I come up with my own, free rules. Maybe that will break the habit.

Hotz Mat

2011-09-12T20:53:00.003-04:00

I got my order today from Hotz ArtWorks. I ordered a double-sided mat over a month ago. It finally arrived. I ordered their larger standard size, 6' x 4,' with the 1" hexes. My daughter and I unfolded it. Wow! Its a lot larger than I thought! One side is a European field pattern the other is an ocean pattern. At first, the ocean pattern didn't seem much different than the field pattern. But my daughter said that there was some blue green it. I guess I was expecting a deep blue, which probably isn't very realistic. I didn't have time to inspect it much beyond that, except to say that the lines that make up the hexes of the ocean side could be a little more distinct, but I will have to look at it in better light. I am really looking forward to gaming on it.

Rock My World

2011-08-23T15:40:00.002-04:00

Well that was interesting.

I've been through several tornadoes, but today I experienced my first earthquake. The epicenter was in northern Virginia and had a 5.9 magnitude. I was sitting in my office when I started hearing a low rumble. At first, I thought it was the air conditioning system acting up, or maybe a freight train was especially loud, but then I felt a shaking. I looked over and all of my fish specimens that are in jars were doing a little dance on my shelves. Something told me that this was an earthquake. It lasted for maybe five minutes. Some people in my office felt it, some did not.

I hope that there was little damage.

Sci-Fi Concept Art

2011-08-19T07:42:00.007-04:00

When I was a kid, I was really into the space exploration. I couldn't get enough books on the subject. One of the things I loved was all the speculation on future space travel. I was a big fan of the works of Willy Ley. I not only enjoyed reading his stuff, but looking at the concept art that went with his work. My favorite articles in Weekly Reader (anyone remember those?) were the ones about domed cities, flying cars, and other speculations on what the future held. I'm sure my mother has kept a number of my own drawing of rockets designed for the Moon, Mars and beyond.

Discovering science fiction later as a teen opened up whole new realm of spaceship concept art. I took a chance on a number of novels by unknown authors based primarily on the cool cover illustration. Two artists that really stood out in terms of spaceships was Chris Foss and Syd Mead. Their styles are very different, but both produced ships that had a hard feel to them that made them look plausible.

As it seems that I am moving into the realm of sci-fi gaming, I have been more on the lookout for anything to give me inspiration. These blogs came up the other day on TMP and seemed worthy of note: concept ships and concept tanks. Both of these have lots of illustrations that are pretty good and provides inspiration for models.

More 15mm Sci-fi

2011-08-08T10:58:00.005-04:00

Whoa, two postings in one day! That's crazy!

Part of my zeal for posting was to try out a new camera. It a Nikon Coolpix S6100. Its for research. Long story of why I bought it, and not worth going into.

Anyway, I've managed to get a number of minis painted over the last several weeks. First off, from Rebel Minis is their Wild CATS robots. You get two in the set.

I should have photographed a human-sized figure next to him for comparison. He comes with these large claws and a missile rack for distance attacks. I decided he was going to be part of my not-Terminator army, hence the silver body and the grey rubble on his base.

Next is the a corporate head and his body guards.

The these guys are all part of the civilian contractors w/VIP from Rebel Minis. I didn't realize until now that I gave him a grey suit like that on the Rebel Minis' site. I've been playing with the idea of using the Yogurt Town scenario that I played with my daughter awhile back as the basis for a scifi campaign.

Places for a Late Night Snack

2011-08-08T10:33:00.004-04:00

All over the streets of Mexico City you will see small snack bars or kiosks. They range from just a thrown up tent, to a small shack. I have not seen too many mobile ones like you do in the USA.

In addition to painting up yatai lunch cart, I built a more permanent structure. It sort of reminds me of something you'd see on a beach selling burgers and hotdogs.

Yatai Food Cart

Snack Shack

The snack shack took all of a few hours to build, and only because the glue had to dry. Forgive me if my Spanish is off. I used a translating program. I was very tempted to try and make a menu board running along the top, but I decided not to press my luck. No snack shack would be complete without some sort of beverage advertisement. Its probably hard to tell the name of the drink, but its a sign for Dr. Enuf. Dr. Enuf is a local soda found in east Tennessee. It can be best described as a sort of a mild lemon-lime soda with a certain "Je ne sais quoi" herbal flavor to it. My daughter and I have grown to like it and always get a bottle when at the farmers market, so I thought it would be a major drink found on the continent of Gambusia.

Greetings from Mexico!

2011-07-24T21:07:00.005-04:00

This doesn't have anything to do with miniatures and gaming, but I am presently in Mexico. The city of Pachuca, to be exact. Business or pleasure, you ask? Well, considering that I am here to do research, I guess both. My research is part of my business and is still (though, sometimes a struggle) my pleasure. I've been coming here to the university and to do field work almost annually, for the past 9 years. Usually I come for two weeks, but for a number of reasons, one of them being budgetary, I could only manage one week.

Sorry, no pictures yet, I just arrived. One thing that I hope to do that is mini-related, is to get lots of pictures of various shops and building for ideas for for constructing new 1/300 buildings. I wanted to get some in Mexico City where I landed, but my camera was packed with my baggage in the trunk of my colleague's car. Plus, I was rather zoned-out from the flight (I still am).

Hopefully, I will collect a lot of data for my research, and get some good shots of interesting and useful architecture.

Modern River Monitors Update

2011-07-08T10:08:00.004-04:00

I haven't completed the plans of my river monitors except for the shape and size of the hull. I decided that I didn't want to use foam core board again like I did on the patrol boat. While visiting family in Chicago this past week, I used my father's scroll saw to cut out the hulls. My father, until he had to get on coumadin, was an avid woodworker with lots of various tools. Unfortunately, all my father had on hand that was right thickness was an old sheet of pegboard. I went ahead any used it. I decided to cut out two hulls in case I flub one of them up. After tracing the hulls onto the pegboard and cutting them out, I corrected any slight errors due to cutting and smoothed the sides out using various riffle files that he had. Even though pegboard is made out of pressed fibers, they came out looking pretty smooth, and I don't need to cover the sides of the hull with paper like I did with the patrol boat.

My next step will be to finish up the plans and start working on the rest of the boats.

"Will you walk into my parlor?" said the Spyder to the Fly

2011-06-20T16:42:00.006-04:00

I made and photographed these awhile back (at least two years ago), but the file got lost in my backup hard drive. I realized sometime back that Southern Chalupastan had no air defenses other than the old M42 Duster of Vietnam War fame. Surfing the web, I came upon the Israeli SPYDER mobile air defense system. It launches short- and medium-ranged surface-to-air missiles. There are two parts to the system. There is the missile launcher and the radar-tracking system; both are mounted on trucks. What I've modeled is the short range version. The medium range system has a much larger radar dish. Here's my take on the SPYDER:

Both trucks are Scotia Gendel's South African Samil 20 truck, open top (SA0012). The actual trucks that are used are built by the TATRA truck company, but these looked close enough. I cut away the sides of their beds. I fashioned the launcher out of cardstock. The missile containers are styrene plastic square rods. Sorry, I can't remember the cross sectional dimensions. I glued the launchers onto two very thin pieces of paper. In pictures, the rack that holds the containers is a very thin frame. The body of the radar truck was a slab of polymer clay that I tried to make as squared up as I could. I made this before I really started working with styrene plastic, so my materials and methods were rather crude. The radar antenna is a pin with curved piece of cardstock attached. I was going to use one of those plastic clothing tag ends, like I did on my patrol boat, but they looked much too big. Another antenna sticks off the back. I painted them olive green, the color of the Southern Chalupastan armed forces. In pictures that I've seen, the containers holding the missiles are a darker green. Painting them that color offsets them from the rest of the truck.

Not the prettiest conversions, but at 1/300, they will do fine. Hey, I don't think GHQ is going to be calling me up anytime soon to offer me a job!

Epic 15mm Fanatasy Battle

2011-06-16T14:19:00.017-04:00

Last Saturday, I had a fantasy battle over at the college. My opponent, George, is a professor at a college in North Carolina. We've been emailing for awhile about having a game, but schedules, particularly mine, made it very difficult to meet. Finally, we managed to set a day for gaming. George turned out to be a great guy and I hope we can have more games. Next time, I will try to visit him. He is only about an hour away from my campus.

We used mostly my 15mm minis, but he brought some of his that we used. I'm going to have to get me one of those orc heroes on a scorpion! The battle was between the Orc-Barbarian alliance and the Dwarf-Medieval Human alliance.

We used Armies of Arcana, 1st edition. They are in the vein of Old School rules with casualties removed individually, and buckets of 6-sided dice used. I know its already in its third addition, and one of these days, I might get it. I really liked them when I first bought them. I had a battle with them ages ago in graduate school, but since then, I have not used them. I had to scramblethe night before to re-read them, and even then, there were parts that I forgot about when the battle began. We kept magic at a minimum (see below).

I apologize for this being a rather lousy after action report. I should have taken notes or something, but I was caught up in the whole game and only took pictures when I remembered to. Next time, I'll try to do better.

Set-up and Beginning Moves

The battlefield and disposition of armies

The battlefield terrain consisted of a stream running through the middle of it with a small forest just to the left of the middle. A stone henge was in the back, but it had no effect on the battle.

George set up his Barbarians to his right and Orcs to his left, with his Goblin wolf riders on his far left flank. I had my Dwarves to my left and medieval Humans on the center and right, with the greatest concentration in the center. I didn't get good pictures of George's Orc set up. I think my SLR camera was more of a hindrance than a help.

Dwarf battle line

Barbarian Hordes

Medieval Army

The opening moves saw the Dwarves and Barbarians march toward each other. As well as most of his Orcs and my Medievals. His Goblin wolf riders started to do a flanking maneuver to my left side, so I sent a unit of spearmen and crossbowmen to meet that threat. My Rabbit archers moved quickly towards the forest. They had the advantage of treating woods as open terrain.

First Blows
The first causalities took place when the Dwarven crossbows and handgunners got into range of the Barbarians. The managed to out-range the bows of the Orc archers, but didn't really put much of a dent into the Barbarian hoards. The first big blow came when none other but Prince Valiant foolishly charged the Orc line far ahead of the rest of the Medievals. Despite his great bravery, he didn't last long:

Prince Valiant's final moments

The Rabbit allies quickly went toe-to-toe with a band of Orcs who entered the forest. Even though they were greatly outnumbered, the Rabbits managed to hold on for much of the game and inflicted some hurt on the Orcs:

Rabbity rumble in the woods

Magic Use
Some magic was used. Each magic-user got three spells, which we randomly determined before the battle. Once, used that was it. George's Barbarian shaman caste a spell that caused the trees to attack my medieval humans. My Dwarf wizard caused a giant water spout to form on top of one of the Barbarian units and caused some fatalities. His other wizard (a renegade human) turned all of my knights' lances into wet noodles, just as they were charging on the Orcs. My human wizard really didn't do much.

The Thick of Battle
Everyone pretty much closed on each other at the same time. I foolishly stuck my peasant archers in front of my knights without being in skirmish mode, and getting all that sorted out cost me some time, which resulting in the wet noodles for lances. The Goblin wolf-riders managed to get around my medieval infantry and headed toward my knights to flank them. The knights and Orcs did come to blows. as well as some of my spearmen. The Orcs had the double-trouble of both a heavy chariot and the champion riding on a scorpion to reinforce one of the war bands. The knights took some punishment, but the two were not as effective as expected.

Orcs and Knights mix it up

Close up of the action

The courageous spearmen struggle to hold back the Green Hordes

Meanwhile, the Dwarves and Barbarians were really locked in deadly combat. The He-Men had somewhat of an advantage in terms of hand-to-hand combat, but the crossbows and hand guns were getting better die rolls and seemed to even things out a bit. The giant entered the fray but took some bullets from the hand guns.

Dwarves do battle with the Barbarians. White disk next to the Giant represents the waterspout

Dwarf king directs gun fire. Dwarf wizard sees something shiny and turns to check it out.

The End
Finally, the Dwarves broke, and the Rabbits were annihilated. The knights had managed to cause the rank-and-file Orcs facing them to run, but the Orc hero and chariot remained. The wolf-riders had flanked the knights and were adding to their casualties, but my reserves consisting of heavy crossbowmen and spearmen were finally moving to position to do some harm on the wolf-riders. However, we decided to call it a day due to the drive that George would have to make back home. It might have been a Barbarian-Orc victory, but it was hard to say. What I can say is that I really had a lot of fun.

Follower of My Own Blog??

2011-06-09T16:58:00.003-04:00

I just noticed this. I am not sure how this happened. I have not clicked on the follower's icon. I'm afraid to. Will I end up at my own profile, or someone else's? As Vinnie Barbarino would say, "that's so weird." Maybe he didn't say it, but he should have.

Lunch Cart--WIP

2011-05-31T15:44:00.006-04:00

Here some quick pictures of a 1/300 of a Japanese style food cart or yatai. I am in the process of making an outdoor market, typical of a lot of towns and cities world over. Even if there isn't an outdoor market, you see food carts and stand, particularly in cities. I'll probably make some variations. They weren't easy to make, but at 1/300 scale, I can forgive myself the first time out.

The GHQ US WW2 artilleryman is for scale. As you can see, the cart is a little small. Of course, the figure is on a thick base. I made it out of styrene plastic, construction paper, and some wire. The wheels I punched out using a very small hole puncher. You can buy various-sized hole punches at craft stores in their scrap book sections.

I've been working on some long tables to use as tables for market vendors. I will have those up soon.

BTW, I've noticed that the most posts I've made per month is five. With this one, I broke my record with six!

Battle of Yogurt Town

2011-05-24T16:06:00.018-04:00

"Daddy, I'm bored...."
"OK, then let's have a war game."

Unlike her father, my 6-year-old daughter is not so good at keeping herself occupied unless she is drawing or doing some sort of craft. We've been having a lot of rain the last two days, so my daughter and I were stuck inside. She is out of school and her after school program is closed for the week before they reopen after Memorial Day. Today, we played store and colored pictures, but after awhile, there was nothing else to do, and I refused to play Barbies! Why not introduce my daughter to wonderful world of wargaming? This was actually our second game. We had a test game last week that pitted my Khurasan Miniatures non-Alien aliens against Khurasan's new Ursid Bearmen. I will have pictures of them up sometime soon. For this game, she wanted to be people (i.e. humans). I had some various yogurt contains and packing inserts that looked good as buildings; those made up Yogurt Town. I made up some super-simple rules. Everything is based on D6.

Turn Sequence:
Roll for initiative. High rolls wins.
Order is: move first, shoot second, melee third.

Movement:
Humans: 2"
Aliens: 4"
+1D6 if figure is declared to be running, but figure cannot shoot.

Combat
Shooting:
Range for rifles and pistols: 6"
Range for RPG: 10"
Range for hand grenades: 3"
To hit
All hits are automatic kills
Pistols: 6 kills
Rifles: 5 or 6 kills
RPG and grenades: blast radius of 2"; 5 or 6 kills.

Melee:
Figures must be in contact to melee.
Each player rolls one die, higher wins.
In Bears vs. Aliens, it was a straight roll. In this game, the Aliens got a +1 to the die roll.

Morale:
None. You keep fighting until the last organism is standing.

The Battle
The sides:
Humans:
The Mayor of Yogurt Town. Armed with a pistol
Lady Goo-Goo. Armed with a pistol and a lot of moxie.
Yogurt Town Militia
9 troopers. 8 with rifles, 1 RPG. None are armed with grenades.
Note: RPG gets three shots. After that the RPG-gunner has a rifle.

Aliens:
10, no weapons, just nasty dispositions.

Yogurt Town. The human forces set up.

The Yogurt Town armory

The aliens emerge from the ruins at the edge of the city.

The alien hoard rushes down the street...and to their doom!

An alien tries to sneak around behind a building, only to be stopped by a militia member.

Leading by example: the mayor, along with a trooper moves up to fight the aliens.

Lady Goo-Goo takes down some aliens.

"NOBODY MESSES WITH MY TOWN!" Yells the Mayor as he dispatches the last alien.

It was more of slaughter than a battle. The poor aliens didn't have a chance to close on the humans. My daughter managed a lot of good rolls on her shooting AND was cleaver enough to move her troops back several times to avoid hand-to-hand combat. Despite the loss, it was a good time and hopefully got my daughter more interested in gaming.

AirWar: C21 Second Test Run

2011-05-22T18:17:00.005-04:00

I finally managed to squeeze a game with another human being! It was very much a last-minute thing. Late Friday night, my friend called said he had some time Sunday afternoon. I thought, OK, lets have a fantasy battle, but I was swamped with various activities Saturday, so I had no time to come up with any army lists. So today, I whipped out AirWar: C21 and some jets and we had two games. I don't have very large tables at home, so we used centimeters rather than inches for movement and weapon ranges. Sorry, no pictures, but I don't think it would have been all that exciting. They were practice games; not part of the Gambusian campaign.

For the first game, I took an Israeli C-7 Kfir, and he took a Saab Gripen. Once again, it sort of felt like I was playing for the first time. It was pretty fast. His first shot was an AIM-120 radar-guided missile at me. It missed. I tried to get around him, buy using a barrel roll and turn but failed and was turned in a very comprising position. He didn't have to do much maneuvering to get in a second second shot. He failed to lock on to me, but he rolled a natural 10 to hit me. BOOM! He rolled a 12 damage and I was blown to bits.

In the second game, we took two of each of the same jets. This time, one of my Kfirs managed to hit one of his Gripens with a Python 4 IR missile, but I only scored a 1 on damage! The my other plane and his were nose-to-nose and in gun range, but he had the initiative. Rather than using his guns, he fired another AIM-120....poof! My plane took 12 hits. So, I had one left. One the next turn, he managed to get back around me at least enough to let loose another of those radar guided missiles, whereas I couldn't launch one of my missiles at him. Once again, he couldn't lock onto me, but his missile still scored a hit! I took more than half damage. From then on, I did my best to try to avoid him and fly home. I managed to avoid him for three turns, but on the fourth, he had a clear shot lined up on my tail. Just for fun he used a Sidewinder missile. It finished me off no problem.

Some things that we questioned. First, its not clear when you launch a missile and when it hits. There is an implication that in the first phase you lock on the target and the second it hits the target. We were playing that both happens on the same phase. Does it matter? I would think it would matter particularly for any sort of radar-guided missiles. I am not sure. It could be that I overlooked this rule one way or another in the rule book. The second issue is about movement. Do we use full movement each phase or only half the movement each phase? I argued that you use full movement each phase because each phase has a prep segment. My friend felt that only half movement should be used because any loss of speed would be more effective in the second phase. He thought that speed penalties imposed by a doing special maneuvers really didn't have much of an effect on things when you could pretty regain them in the following phase. For the previous issue, the fiddly turning template, my friend thought of a novel solution. He suggested gluing a small circle at the bottom of the bases with the different turn radii on them (see previous link on bases for 1/600 planes). Since the planes are on magnets, you can turn the plane in the direction you want to go. I'll give it a try. It may not be perfect, but it might be better than the turning template I now use. Meanwhile, I still plan to order a hex mat to play on. Even if I don't use the mat for C21, there are other air combat rules that I want to test out and can use it for those.

I still think AirWar: C21 2nd ed. is a very good set of rules. However, I would make a few modifications. First, I would reorganize it some. It seems like I have to do a lot of hunting to find the rules. Second, I'd give more examples. There are some, but they are sort of brief, and only cover certain things. I would have a section where the authors run through a sample game, illustrating the various aspects, even those that might seem rather simple. I'm sure that would add more to the cost of the rule set, but it might be worth it.

Protect the Queen!

2011-05-17T14:17:00.004-04:00

Being overly protective, the Blue Power Warriors of Benedryl Prime, mistakenly took the Unfinished Vampire Queen's opera practice as a cry for help and rushed to her side to protect her. The Blue Power Warriors are Critical Mass Games' Kaamados Agaamid Infantry w/Twin Slug Throwers (I think). The Vampire Queen is a Ral Partha figure I bought long ago for a friend of mine and never quite completed.

New Project: Modern River Monitors

2011-05-10T13:12:00.005-04:00

The General's strategy (Operation: Ike & Tina) is based on moving down and attacking from rivers. I already built the small patrol boat, but I figure that there needs to be more firepower. I have no idea if any of these 1/300 scale ships will be used in any games, but they are fun and challenging to make.

The Plans
The former Soviet Union/Russia seems to have employed a number of river monitors within its borders. I thought I would design one based on theirs. The book by A. S, Pavlov, Warships of the USSR and Russia 1945-1995 (1997, Naval Institute Press) helped me find what I was looking for. There are two that I am considering.

The Slepen' is the larger of the two. It is armed with two T-55 tank turrets, plus 2 AK-630M 30mm turrets. The Shmel' is armed with a PT-76 tank turret plus a variety of smaller weapons depending on the ship. While most ships depicted in Warships of the USSR and Russia 1945-1995 have both a deck plan and a top view, entries for these two ships only had the deck plan. So, what I need to do first, is to make up top views based on what I can tell about deck plans. Easier said than done!

The Project
Once I get my top views drawn, I will come up with my own monitor design, based on a combination of these two existing ships. Once I've got my plans down, I will scale it down to size and build it much the same way as I did the patrol boat. The members of the Shmel' class seem to carry an number of different weapons including multiple rocket launchers, anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, as well as anti-aircraft gun turrets. Therefore, I'm thinking of making a number of different weapons systems that can be swapped in and out. They will be held onto the ship by a rare earth magnet. Stay tuned for more updates!

A New Light Will Shine Forth

2011-05-02T12:58:00.002-04:00

Last week, my light died out on me. I don't think that it was the bulb, but the light itself. It seems like it has a short in it because it kept going off and then coming back on. At first, it was once in awhile, but finally it got to the point where it was doing it constantly. This was not my first light. My original light was an old workhorse, probably from the 1950s, that was my uncle's when he was a professional graphic artist. It still works well, but it has one of those c-clamp bases, and I can't attach it firmly to my new table. This one that died on me is something that my wife bought at a garage sale. It didn't give as much light as old workhorse, but it did the job.

I've always wanted one of those OttLights. They are supposed to be superior to a regular desk lamp. They seemed to have come down a little in price since the last time I inquired, so I thought that it was upgrade time. I wanted the Better Vision Crane desklamp, but Office Depot only sold the Spin and Store lamp. Its probably just as good, but the crane lamp seems a little more maneuverable. I'm not sure how much they charge at other stores, but the Spin and Store was about $10 less than what the OttLight company is charging online. There was also one at Office Depot called the Vero Table lamp, whose bulb is twice as long as both the crane lamp and the one I got, but is arm just pivots up and down. I don't think would have delivered the light that I needed. We shall see how well the one I bought works.

On the subject of lighting, what kind of light do you use to work on minis? I was going to post this question on TMP, but I'm too lazy. Well, back to grading final exams!

Grumble...Grumble...Grumble...

2011-04-28T22:21:00.005-04:00

So, I'm working on several projects at once, which is difficult because if I get a half an hour free, I'm a lucky guy. Anyway, one of the things I have been doing is making a hex mat to play various air combat games...or, I was until about an hour ago.

I am philosophically opposed to miniature games that require hexes. Don't get me wrong, board games are great things. I started wargaming with Avalon Hill and SPI years before I found miniatures. One of the immediate things that attracted me to gaming with miniatures is that movement and ranges were no longer restricted and seemed a little less abstract. Also, it meant that you have to have one, and that also felt somehow restricting. You can't just set a game up on any table, you have to have The Mat present to play the game. However, there seems like there are a number of air combat games that require hexes for movement of aircraft and weapon ranges. As I said in a previous post, I really like Air War: C21, which is hexless, but I found that with the newest addition, the turn radius is "fiddly" as they say in the UK. So, I broke down and decided to make my own hex mat. Yes, I could spend the money on a pre-made one, but that's just not me. If I were to have a coat-of-arms, the motto under it would read: Why Do Things the Easy Way, When You Can Do Them the Hard and Complicated Way? I guess I am sort of like Papa Bear from the many Berenstain Bears stories. I just have to do things the hard way.

So, I go to Lowe's and buy at set of foam interlocking floor mats. A 4' x 4' one cost me $18. There are cheaper ones at Walmart, but they were 1' x 1' tiles and they looked thinner and perhaps might be too flexible. I also bought a 1.5 " hex stencil from a company that shall remain nameless for about $25. I'm not going to blame the stencil totally for my woes, but when I got it, I was a tad dubious. The stencil is a 12" x 12", thin, clear, plastic sheet. The hexes are made of small holes. Now, I bought this thing several months ago so I am a little fuzzy here, but the recall that the company recommended using spray paint to put the hexes onto the board surface. I didn't think this was a good idea because once you sprayed it, it might be hard to line things up for the next set of hexes. There are at the edges of the stencil some rather finely etched lines that are supposed to be alignment marks. They are not very easy to see, and if you were to get any paint on them, they would be rendered useless. So, I decided to use a Sharpie marker and poke it into each hole. Its far slower, but at least I could see the where the dots were and weren't. Things went very well for the first 2' x 2' section, and things were seemingly going well for the second section. However, as I worked on it tonight, I suddenly found that the hexes were going out of alignment. I thought I was lining up the alignment marks properly, but somewhere, I must have misaligned things just enough to mess the whole thing up. A tiny misalignment in the beginning will greatly magnify itself over time. It might have been off by maybe 1 or 2 degrees, but by the time I got 2/3rds through this second board, lines were missing each other by about 3 to 4 millimeters. As I said, doing it with a marker is a slow process. I've been picking away at it for almost two weeks now. When I realized how bad it was, I sat there staring it all for about an hour hoping that maybe time would reverse itself back just before I made the alignment error and I could get it right. But that didn't happen. So now I have a less than half finished hex board/mat. I guess I could spray it over with some color to cover the hexes and start again. I originally painted the mats with craft paints, but there is no way that paint will cover over the hexes. I could try spray painting the hexes on, but who knows if I will get the alignment right this time.

No, I'm going to do like Papa Bear did in The Big Honey Hunt. After chasing a bee all over the countryside trying to get honey the natural way, he ends up being all battered and bruised but with no honey. So, at the end of the story, he stops by the nearby honey store and buys it. I think I'm going to order a pre-made hex mat.

Zombie Huntress

2011-04-19T15:48:00.005-04:00

Quick update here. I have a bunch of things in progress, but I will wait until I am finished with them before I post them. Here is a female zombie hunter from The Scene (ZH001). She's a little on the scruffy side close up, but doesn't look too bad on the table top. I was going for a Latina look, but I'm not sure if I succeeded. She fits in well with Ground Zero Games' not-Serenity starship crew.

Ramblings on a Slow Hobby Month

2011-03-28T14:32:00.004-04:00

I have been working on a few projects here and there, but I've had little time to put in a lot of time on anything. There have been a lot of things going on since my last posting, good and not-so-good, that have preoccupied my time.

Last week, I celebrated the Big 5-0. Yikes! My wife threw me a nice dinner party. It was mostly friends from work, their spouses, family, significant others, etc. The highlight seemed to be the showing of the "war room." A lot of my friends knew about my hobby activities, but few have seen my stuff. It always feels a little funny when I show people my minis and such. I guess I feel a little reluctant to let people into my private world.

Work has been incredibly stressful...probably the most since I became the head of the department. I'm not going into particulars, but a lot has to do with the financial health of my school and the penny-wise, pound-foolish decisions that the administration has made. The past three weeks or so has left me feeling really demoralized (the birthday party was major pick-me-up). It has also got me rather concerned about retirement, more so than usual.

Big question for folks out there: does the current economy and/or retirement plans make you re-think your hobby expenditures? It has for me. It seems that every year, the financial and retirement experts keep bumping up the minimum amount of money needed to retire somewhat comfortably. I'm not doubting their wisdom, but it feels like swimming against a current. I am not ready to put up all my wargaming stuff on E-Bay yet, but I need to take a hard look at what I am buying. I have the feeling that there are those of us out there that spend far more than I do, but I feel like I need to cut back on a lot of things.

Space Demons

2011-03-03T13:30:00.008-05:00

Here are some shots of Khurasan Miniatures' 15mm Space Demons.

I think they are the best non-Alien aliens in 15mm out there. They have a big variety, and each variety has a number of poses. In fact, they just added more poses to two of their varieties. My only problem is, that like other cool-but-exotic-looking miniatures, I get a bad case what I call "painter's freeze." Painter's freeze is: 1) I can't make up my mind as to how I want to paint them, and 2) I keep feeling that I won't do them justice, especially when I see how other people have painted them. I have a bunch of Scotia-Grendel's Kryomek Aliens that are still waiting to be painted no thanks to painter's freeze.

How did I break through this disturbing psychological block? Nail polish! There are all kinds of metallic colors out there. I have used nail polish before to simulate silk or satin on historical Asian miniatures. I found some cheapo metallic polish. The color of the pictures is not perfect, but it was a blue-green metallic color. I just painted it on straight from the bottle. Try not to be too thick, but make sure it covers. If I buy more space demons, I might try painting them without priming them. Once dry, I very sparingly highlighted some of the raised parts with metallic silver paint and painted the teeth a creme color. Then I sparingly washed them with a mixture of black india ink and Future floor wax. The bases are pennies. The base texture was done with a mixture of sand, burnt umber acrylic paint, and a little wood glue.

Hey! Don't leave your snack wrappers on the floor!

1/300 Patrol Boat Project: Part 3

2011-02-27T19:20:00.014-05:00

The Northern Chalupistan patrol boat Yuzz on its shakedown cruise:

Sorry about the black & white shots, but the background was horrible looking and I couldn't fix it.

Here is a front view shot:

Rear view:

Here's what she looked like before I painted her:

To smooth over the foamcore, I wrapped the ships hull and superstructure with construction paper. The searchlight about the bridge is from the tapered end of a tooth pick. The windows were cut from granny screen. They were probably way too thick. The door and the engine hatches was made out of sheet styrene. The railings were done using a jig that I built:

Its four nails. Two nails are used to set the width of the railing and the other two pull the wire taught. I used a very fine iron wire (I can't remember the gauge). The width-setting nails are about a millimeter in diameter, which seemed about right. The railing posts were made of the same wire. They were folded over and then glued with super glue. Once dried they are cut to length. You can't see it in the photo, but there are marks along the jig that indicate where to put each post.

I used parts from Scotia's neutral equipment range for the 20mm main gun and the zodiac boat, and the two machineguns were from C-in-C. The life-saver rings are copper wire that I wrapped around a nail and then cut. I sealed the gap with some Squadron Green Stuff putty.

I made one modification before I painted the ship. I didn't like the two different radar dishes, so I cut off the lower one and stuck on the plastic head of a pin. It represents an electro-optical sensor. Think of them as very high-tech telescope system. It has a range finder as well as infrared imaging.

I painted it a gray. The windows are payne's gray. You can't tell, but the zodiac is painted green.

My next project will be a river monitor. I plan to base it off of ex-Soviet river monitors.

1/300 Patrol Boat Project: How to Scale

2011-02-21T14:09:00.010-05:00

I noticed in an earlier post that I didn't really answer a question about how I scale down the boat plans using a copier. I thought I would just post it rather than add to the running comments, which is about two weeks old.

What I do is print out the plans. I then scale them down. My boat is 30 meters long, so I am going to solve for x; x being the length of the boat at 1/300 scale.

If 1 meter = 1,000 mm, then 30 meters = 30,000 mm.

Why first convert to mm? I could have also used centimeters, but the important thing is that units must always be the same in both the numerator and the denominator. Therefore, the scale or ratio is 1 mm = 300 mm.

Now, you solve for x:

x mm/30,000 mm = 1/300

x = 1/300 x 30000 mm

x = 100 mm

So at 1/300 scale the 30 meter boat measures 100 mm or 10 cm in length.

Now, comes the reducing part. You want to reduce the drawing down to 100 mm. You measure the length of the boat in the drawing. Let's say its 15 cm long. You know you have to reduce it in size so that its length is 10 cm. You divide 10 into 15:

10/15 = 0.66

When you copy your original, go to the ZOOM menu and reduce down to 66% That should do it. It helps to have a ruler handy to make sure it is at the proper length.

I hope that helps. There are are some online scale converters to speed things up. There used to be a pretty good online calculator, but I noticed that its gone. The nice thing about this one was that you could enter any scale you want to. Others that I have seen have pre-set scales that are either for building doll houses or standard models. I wouldn't be surprised if there was some sort of app that will do it for you. Eh...its not that hard to do it on your own. Besides, its good to dust off and exercise those neuronal connection involved in algebra!

1/300 Patrol Boat Project: Part 3

2011-02-09T13:15:00.010-05:00

I am sort of surprised that I have time to build this boat. Nice thing about this project is that I can work on it for 15 minutes a day and get a lot done.

The next step was to build the antenna mast. The plans call for two radar antennae and a hoop radio antenna. The sides of the mast are rounded off. Initially, I cut out and laminated thin cardboard to make it:

The problem is that cardboard does not round off very well. Something I learned but forgot about from an earlier project. Instead, I used thin styrene plastic. Like everything else, I cut copies of the mast and then glued them together:

Here is the mast completed but without the radar:

Rounding the edges was a lot easier with the plastic. I used a fine grit emery board to get into the tight corners.

Finally, I added the electronics and a base, and it was finished:

The lower radar antenna was made using another thin piece of styrene. It was really tricky gluing it on. Then I found a good alternative. You know all of those little plastic wire things that hold price tags to articles of clothing? Well, they look like radar antennae. That is what I used for the upper one. I drilled a tiny hole in the mast and fitted it in. I probably should have made the lower one out of that, too, but I spent too much time gluing that one down to want to pull it off.
The loop antenna I made from some wire that I wrapped around a drill bit and then cut. The additional wire hoops will be used for life saver rings. I globed some Squadron green putty into the gap. At the time I took this picture, it was still drying. I need to go in and smooth out the putty. It is mounted on a small lollipop stick cut to size. Back in my day, lollipop sticks were made out of paper. Now, they are plastic.

Alien Reflection

2011-02-07T21:51:00.003-05:00

Khurasan Space Demon

1/300 Patrol Boat Project: Part 2

2011-02-04T14:25:00.008-05:00

My next step in building the patrol boat was to build the top part of the superstructure which included the bridge. The bridge was a challenge because it flared out at an angle. I built up the superstructure by laminated pieces of cardboard. Like the hull of the boat, I glued on a template, cut out the outline of the template, then glued one layer cardboard on top of another. To cut out the bridge, I used my knuckles as a jig and rested my razor saw against against them at an angle. The picture below is the bottom of the bridge and superstructure:

Here is what it looks like flipped over:

It wasn't perfect, but good enough for government work! To give you a better idea of what is going on, here is what the superstructure looks like with the top part fitted to the bottom:

Other than gluing strips of card stock onto the bridge to represent window frames, the whole thing looks pretty crude.

For the next installment, I will build the radar mast and finish the superstructure.

1/300 Patrol Boat Project: Part 1

2011-01-31T20:55:00.007-05:00

The commander-in-chief of Northern Chalupistan, known as the General, ordered that his troops sail down the various rivers of his nation to invade Southern Chalupastan. This strategy was not what I was expecting, but that is what makes a play-by-email campaign interesting. So, I have started to build a small flotilla. My goal is to make some ships that are nothing fancy, but passable for gaming purposes.

I found some plans for a 30 m inshore patrol boat. I scaled down to 1/300 size, and then made a bunch of photocopies:

My original thought was to build up the boat's hull using a number of layers of either cardboard or styrene plastic sheets. I decided that would take way too long. Instead, I glued a copy of the top view plan of the boat down onto a piece of foam core and then cut it out. The bridge and superstructure were too complicated to build out of a single piece of anything. Again, using the plans as a template, I cut out the lower part of the bridge from apiece of corrugated cardboard. With a sharp hobby knife, I shaped the front of the bridge as best as I could. Here is the result:

The stern has a ramp for a zodiac boat. So, using my trusty hobby knife, I shaved off the stern at an angle.

So far, the boat is pretty crude, but I plan to somehow cover up the foam and the corrugated cardboard. My next step is to complete the bridge. Stay tuned...

The Rise of the REALLY Tiny Machines

2011-01-21T14:06:00.005-05:00

Here is another installment of my build up of 15mm sci-fi minis. This time I have painted more Terminator-like robots. Several different companies make android battle robots, but I like those made by The Scene. In my opinion, their robots seem to most closely resemble those of the Terminator movies. Of course, you may not want to go that route, but that was more what I was looking for. There are two types.

One type are the human sized robots. They are armed with some sort of blaster rifles:

The other the large sized robot. These are fire support troops. Notice that the heads are different from the smaller troops. The smaller guys have skulls for heads whereas heads of the big guys remind me of the ABC robot from the movie, Judge Dredd.

There is now a third type, but I unclear what the differences are between those and these two.

I painted and based them almost the exact way I did for the 28mm version of these: sprayed them silver, then washed them with my mixture of black India ink and acrylic floor wax. I painted the guns either olive green or gray, depending on the robot. For the bases, I used various bits and pieces of things, including some 15mm skulls by Peter Pig. The only difference is that instead of using acrylic caulk for the ground work like I did on the 28s, I used Sculpy polymer clay. I embedded the pieces into the clay and then baked them.

Stay Warm My Friends

2011-01-16T18:27:00.006-05:00

This week was a mess. I came down with a horrible head cold, which still lingers as a sinus infection. The storms and unusually cold temperatures for this part of the country disrupted everyone's work and school schedules. Then for the weekend, my daughter and wife came down with the flu. Of all the weeks....I had an opportunity to have a game someone from out of town. As much as I wanted to, I didn't want to subject the poor fellow with the various diseases flying around our household.

In between times of feeling like my head was about to explode, I managed to snap a few more pictures of my growing 15mm sc-ifi collection. First up is Khurasan Miniatures Sepulvedan Resistance Fighters range. As usual, Khurasan seems to buck stylistic stereotypes. Unlike a lot of 28mm sci-fi ranges, where the humans look like they were marching through a steam bath of a jungle, these troopers look like they are dressed for cold weather.

They have nice little wool caps on their heads, and some look like they are wearing turtleneck sweaters. They also have heavy-duty flak vests on. Here are some close ups:

Command Group

The command group has a leader, a woman with a some sort of SMG, and a dude with RPG.

Rifle Team

The rank and file are armed with some sort of big rifle; sort of a Heckler & Koch G3 on steroids. There are mostly men, but there are a few women among the ranks. I painted them with various camo schemes, none of which showed up all that well in the photos. What am I going to use them for? Probably some sort of volunteer defense force of some distant human colony. Who are their opponents? Stay tuned...

The rabbits are coming, hooray, hooray...

2011-01-14T15:30:00.006-05:00

With all the school closings due to snow, I managed to get some painting in. I had a bunch of Splintered Light Miniatures 15s that were beginning to pile up. I previously posted the rank-and-file Kobolds that I finished but had not based. I had some rabbit archers and a number of dwarves to work on. The rabbits come in two poses. One rabbit is either shooting or just shot, the other is pulling out another arrow.

I based them as skirmishers. It just seemed right.

The other Splintered Light mini that I finished was a Dwarf wizard.

When I first finished him, I felt that I over did the black wash. But the more I look at him, I really liked the way he came out. For the base, I made a faceted rock out of black sculpy. The only thing I did to it was very lightly dry brush some highlights on the edges of the facets.

Bases: as I mentioned in at least one previous post, I generally don't spend much time on bases. They are time consuming, they distract from the miniature, and it always seemed a little weird that a rock or shrub would be following along with a unit of troops! Lately, I've doing some adding of do-dads to the bases. I've been also experimenting with various media to base the base, so to speak. With the rabbits, I tried using this air drying clay by Crayola. People have been using it for various terrain projects,its relatively cheap for the amount you get, plus its found a Walmart and a lot other big-box stores. Well, it didn't really work well for the bases. I use steel bases and glue with thin cardstock or construction paper on the steel base to hold down the miniatures better. It turned out that it was a pain to apply. I think you really need to work with this stuff fresh and mine is beginning to dry up. Second, once it dried, it pulled up the paper underneath it, even though the paper was glued down with superglue. What's the alternative? Sculpy. I use Sculpy on my 6mm infantry. It works just as well on the larger minis. Sculpy goes onto the bases very easily. I texture it with a toothpick, which helps to hold down flocking better. I have found that baking the bases with the minis on there does not hurt the minis at all. The dwarf and one of the rabbit stands had their metal bases covered by Sculpy.

Happy New Year!

2011-01-02T13:59:00.002-05:00

Seasons greetings! I know, its already January 2nd, but better late than never.

Well, my planned wargame over the holidays never happened. First, in our rush to pack the car to go to Chicago, I forgot the figures that I have been furiously painting up. Once in Chicago, I realized that I have enough of my old 25mm fantasy figures stored at my parent's house that I could have a game using them. Turned out my friend Karl had some sort of really bad bug, plus we were too busy running here and there to have time for one. Hopefully, I can squeeze in a game this week with my gaming pal Will before school starts and swamps the both of us.

Your Taxes at Work

2010-12-15T15:07:00.006-05:00

Government Strike Team

After days of desperately trying to cover up the accidental unleashing of the killer robots,the Fugu Corporation knew it needed help from the government. After all, it was a government contract to build the buggers. The government brought in their black-ops unit specializing in this sort of thing. The only team available just got back from a special assignment in central Badguristan and hence, the camo uniforms.

Riflemen

Pistol-armed troopers

Squad leader

These dudes are from eM4 Miniatures line of plastic figures. Their Near Future line comes in metal and plastic. It should be noted that their plastic troopers and not the same as the metal troopers. The metal ones are slightly different and have different, more detailed guns. Plus, the plastic set contains more pistol-armed men than rifle armed. I emailed the owner of eM4 about this, and he told me that the metal ones were more military combat troops whereas the plastic troopers were supposed to be more like police SWAT members. None the less, I am pretty happy with them, plus you can't beat the price. If I were to do it over again, I'd probably swap out their plastic weapons with some metal ones. They will represent another team for my holiday skirmish.

The Uptight Citizens Brigade

2010-12-13T15:04:00.018-05:00

They began as just an over-zealous committee of the Whispering Oaks Subdivision Homeowners Association. But when the Fugu Corporation accidentally unleashed the cyborg horrors, they knew that they had to take action to protect their suburban way of life. They became the Uptight Citizens Brigade!

Coach Russell "Rusty" Jordan

Dr. Dieter Dumblehoff D.D.S

Winnifred "Winnie" Jones

Toby

Brittney Louise Sumner, Leader

These are the Citizen Militia 2 pack from Copplestone Castings Future Wars line. I found that the dip method, which I usually use on 15mm didn't seem to work well on 28s. Coach was a victim of it. It really messed up a very nice camo scheme on his pants.

All of the figures of this line have the same submachine gun. I swapped out Toby's for a futuristic-looking, SAW-type gun made by Hasslefree Miniatures. They make some really nice weapons. I wanted to modify others, but Toby was the only one I could change weapons without really messing up the figure.

The Uptight Citizens Brigade is going to be one of the rival teams for the multi-player skirmish battle I plan to have over the holiday break back in Chicago.

Band of Brothers

2010-11-18T11:44:00.008-05:00

Here is my first foray into the 15mm SF. These are the Garn from Khurasan Miniatures. This company is coming out with tons of 15mm SF minis. It almost seems good to be true.

Group Portrait

I ended up painting them green. I've seen them done up in other colors, and those look really good, but I like my lizardmen-types green, be they fantasy or science fiction.

I couldn't tell what the leader was holding in his hand for a weapon, so I made one out of polymer clay. I was going for an old Star Trek phaser-type gun and I think I succeeded. I don't think I could re-create this weapon again however.

Garn Leader

The Garn seemed to have taken the minimalist approach to weaponry, which is cool. I get tired of the huge, oversized weapons I see on a lot of 28mm figures. There were several weapons to choose from for the heavy weapons trooper. It was a toss up, but I chose thing flame thrower looking thing. According to the website, the disc on their back is a force-field generator.

Garn Heavy Weapons Trooper

As I mentioned in previous posts, I hate having to deal with ground cover on bases. I think I saw the following method on another blog, but I forgot to bookmark it. I assume I did it according to their instructions. I took 1 part Liquitex oxide red paint (the variety that is in the tubes), 2 parts white glue, and a good amount of sand, mixed it all up into a paste. I then slopped it onto their bases the best I could. Between the paint, which is thick to begin with, and the glue, it really hardens well. Once dry, I diluted some black acrylic paint with acrylic floor wax and washed it on. The base, btw, is a US penny.

Garn Troopers

Pardon the speckles on some of the figures. My camera doesn't usually have that problem. I did use a flash on the close ups but not on the group portrait. I will have to see if there is a way to fix that on the camera end.

A 15mm Renaissance

2010-11-16T15:12:00.003-05:00

No, I'm not going into Renaissance wargaming. But I did take the plunge and started up into 15mm Sci-fi gaming (insert :-o emoticon here). I need to start a new line of gaming like I need another hole in my head. What can I say, I'm a wargaming junkie. I started for three reasons (always good to justify these things):

First, I blame TMP for my exposure to 15mm SF! SF in 15mm has really taken off. I am amazed at all the various lines that are coming out. I am very impressed by the sculpting and the variety that I see.

Second, it the price. As much as I have liked 25/28mm figures, I can't justify buying them. I started off back in the 1970s with 25mm medieval and fantasy figures. When I found the same in 15s, I switched. At first, I was not too impressed with the extent of the ranges, especially in the fantasy category, but I then realized that part of the fun was to make the best of what was out there....a limited palate, so to speak. Now, there is far more out there. It seems like with 15mm SF, I don't have to go through that drought that I did when I switched over to 15mm fantasy.

Third, is gamers. My gaming buddy is a newbie and loves Warhammer 40K. 40k ok, but, its very expensive, and second, I'm just not that crazy about the rules. Many years ago, I played several games of Warhammer Fantasy (don't ask me what edition). There were too many odd rules that I didn't like. When I suggested to the guy I was playing with that we come up with some house rules to correct these, he threw a major hissy-fit! Hey, its a game, not a religion! Call me Old School (which I probably am), but I prefer generic rules and feel not ones tailored exclusively to a line of miniatures. I figure that if we play 15s, it will wean him off of the 40K, at least enough to want to play in other scales/rules/periods of gaming. Not to go off on a tangent, but at least Flames of War looks like it will be fun for scales other than 15mm.

I was going to post some pictures, but as luck would have it, the battery on my camera went dead. I'm not even able to download the few shots that I managed to take. However, once I get my camera battery re-juiced, there will be pictures to follow....stay tuned!

Your Ad Here

2010-11-13T12:07:00.001-05:00

Mexico City is a really cool city. Its huge, and has a lot of things to do and see there. I've gone there several times while doing research in Mexico. What is not cool about it, besides its high crime rate (but what city doesn't?) is all the ads and billboards. I don't think there is a single building that doesn't have some sort of advertisement on it. So, I thought, any city or large town worth its salt on the Gambusian mini-continents should have ads on their buildings. So, here is my first very modest attempt:

A few new "innovations" with this building. I wanted it to be commerical, so I made some large shop doors. Yes, they looked uneven, but I blame it on the thin cardstock I was using. Also, I forgot to darken the interiors of the shops. These aren't innovations. First, I made the balcony railings out of window screen. Its easy to cut out, but difficult to glue down to the balcony. I found that if I put a tiny strip of cardstock at the bottom of screen, it glues better and is a little studier. You can see the difference between the first verses the second and third floors. The second innovation was with the windows. It sort of a pain to make them out of polymer clay, its somewhat limiting as to what you can do, you can't get them squared up very well, and they are disproportionally thick. So, I used this mesh screen that is used for knitting or something. It is made out of soft plastic, and comes in two sizes (at least as far as I know). I used my sprue-cutters to cut out windows. They are great because you can make various sized windows. The only drawback to them is that you really have to get in there with the sprue-cutter to get a flush cut otherwise you get little nubbins sticking out where you cut. The next time I used them, I will also glue them first on a paper backing for painting purposes. Here is what the building looks like on the side:

I took an ad out of some Chinese movie catalog and scanned it under a really high resolution. Then I shrank it down and swapped out the Chinese for Spanish. The Chinese is translated into Spanish, so the ad is still legit. My printer didn't do such a hot job at the edges of the text for some reason, but that is OK. You could say the ad has been there for awhile and has faded a little. I plan to get a little more creative in the future with my ads.

We Just Clixed

2010-11-08T20:53:00.000-05:00

I finally decided what I am going to do with these various 28mm scifi-ish figures I've been collecting and slowly painting. I plan to have a battle royale skirmish game with them over Xmas at my parents. I will have probably four to five sides. I'm sure I can get my nephews and my friend Karl to play. I haven't decided what rules to use, but I'm leaning towards Two-Hour Wargames, Chain Reaction 3.0.

Teams so far:

•Robot Terminators: Sid and his droogs

•Biker Gang: Big Karl, Bambi & friends

•Futuristic soldiers: eM-4 plastic soldiers

•Motley Crew: Various figures banded together for survival

To supplement some of the teams, I bought a bunch of Heroclix and other "Clix" plastic figures. They are more-or-less 28mm, and by and large, very cheap. The most expensive one I got was Hellboy, and he was only $2.00. The others where between $0.50 and $1.25. They are not nearly as detailed as the metal figures, but you can't beat the price!

Some Heroclix Ladies

Hellboy Heroclix

I plan to remove them from the bases and rebase them. I'll repaint them, too. For the heroine on the left, I'll probably try to place a pistol in her hand as she is only armed with a knife.

Just Loggin In to Say Hello

2010-10-27T13:25:00.000-04:00

October is nearly gone. Surprisingly, I've actually done a great deal of work. This includes:

• Constructing another small building 1/300 scale.

• Painting some Northern Chalupistan troops (1/300).

• Painting and mounting more 1/600 aircraft onto their flight stands.

• Working on some 28mm figures. This includes swapping out weapons, and priming a bunch for painting.

• Starting a new project involving 15mm SciFi.

The problem is getting time to photograph things. Over the past two months, I get about 20 minutes to an hour one or two nights a week to work on things, so I'd rather spend that rare time painting or building than photographing....sorry!

Been a Download'n Fool Today

2010-09-27T14:48:00.000-04:00

I planned to take some pics of my newest project, but a bunch of things took priority this weekend. One of which is downloading software. I've been trying to download a bunch of image-analysis software for a research project that I am doing with some udergraduate students. Sort of frustrating,both in terms of the software and the students, but I am getting there. I hope to get some pictures tonight.

Old Minis Come out of the Closet

2010-09-14T10:33:00.000-04:00

About four years ago, my wife got a new job in a town almost 2 hours from where we now reside. We were so certain that we were going to move closer to where she worked, we packed up probably about 75% of all our stuff. This included all of my books and 15mm fantasy figures. Well, my wife as another new job that is closer to home, so we are still in our old house. I finally decided to haul out all of my packed away miniatures. To took me two days to do it. I counted about 14 plastic shoe boxes full and another 10 plastic pencil boxes full of painted minis. When it was all said and done, the metal wire shelf that I bought recently was almost completely filled. I also found about 20 baby food jars worth of unpainted 15s. This is in addition to the large box I have of them. I guess that because its been such a long time since I had them all out, that I was a little overwhelmed at their numbers

Celia

2010-08-31T10:42:00.000-04:00

I was looking for some slightly unusual 25/28mm figures for my nebulous scifi/post-apocalyptic skirmish game that I am slowly building. A while back, the Miniatures Page had a hobby news posting for figure called "Celia." She is a figure in Fantasy Flight Games' Anima: Tactics. I have no clue what the game is about and I am not going to speculate on whether the game is worth spending the money for.

Anyway, Celia belongs to some faction and is an assassin wielding a katana. Here is her card:

From my view, she is seemed to be the most "normal" looking character of the bunch. Whomever painted her for the the ad on TMP, really did a great job. She seemed sort of expensive, but I figured, why not. Here she is primed but unpainted:

When it was all said and done, I was not that happy with the way she came out. The problem is two-fold. First, my eyes just ain't what they used to be. Even with reading glasses, things just are not that in depth. Also, I am not as steady with the brush any more. Add to it that Celia was somewhat expensive, and I was maybe too worried about screwing up. As a rule, I don't usually strip and repaint figures over again...too much of a pain.

The second problem is that her scuplted features are TOO fine! I am not a huge fan of Games Workshop universe, but I have to say this about their figures: you really can differentiate lines, folds, and various sculpted features when you are painting them. Not so with Celia. For example, she is supposed to be wearing some sort of thong underwear that sticks out over her pants and go across her hips. I could barely make out the straps. I really wasn't too happy with the face either. I never claim to be a master painter, but I have to have something more to work with, especially when you add in the eyesight and all that. About the only thing I was happy with is the base. I used broken egg shells as the tiles and glued some flock in between some of them. Well, here she is to fight along side Big Karl and Bambi:

New Ideas; New Minis

2010-08-11T09:40:00.000-04:00

I just got back from a paleontology meeting in the city of Saltillo, Mexico. From a gaming standpoint, I got a lot of good ideas for more 6mm buildings.

Just before I left for Mexico, a whole mess of 15mm sci-fi miniatures from various companies came in. I managed to paint up base some robots using the same style as I did for my 28mm robots. Pictures to appear soon.

Kobolds!

2010-07-27T21:25:00.000-04:00

I've been so swamped with work for over a month now, that I have not had time to post anything new on my blog. Despite my work load, I managed to paint up some kobolds from Splintered Light Miniatures. The only other company that made kobolds in 15mm was Ral Partha, which I never managed to get. These are well detailed and have no mold lines that I can see. They closely fit the description of them found in the AD&D Monster's Manual (1st edition). For some reason, I've always pictured them as a baby-poop yellow (come on, you know the color!) color. I still have to base them and then paint up the command group.

Exciting News!

2010-06-28T12:54:00.001-04:00

It is hard to believe, but I found another gamer nearby. The husband of a colleague somewhat recently started gaming. He knows a few others within a reasonable travel radius, and I think there are some potential gamers among some of the faculty at my college. Maybe we are overly optimistic, but we are going to start a club and see where it goes.

On a different note, I sort of gave my friend Karl (the General of Northern Chalupistan) an ultimatum. I said that if he didn't come through with his OOB for his Operation: Ike & Tina, that I'd start the battles without him. He is probably angry at me because he has not emailed me back since I sent him the message over two weeks ago. From my standpoint, he hasn't done a whole lot lately and I really want to begin gaming the campaign, especially if I now have real live people to game with. He seems to enjoy the roll-playing aspect of it, but doesn't seem all that interested in much of the other aspects. Setting up your army dispositions may be dull, but it has to be done. I've already begun assigning combat brigades to the various starting points of the invasion, and I have been using what he sent me in terms of plans. Maybe he will send me something, if not, the war must go on.

The New Table is Now Operational

2010-06-10T14:29:00.001-04:00

The New Table

I don't have everything on there, but its now ready to be used!

An open house was attended by a few guests:

The Unfinished Vampire Queen Welcomes the Guests

Guests Chatting and Examining the New Facilities

Big Karl and Bambi Admiring the New Glue Station

New Table Update

2010-06-08T14:29:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I put up my new table (sorry, no pictures). On the plus side, its very long, on the down side, its very long. If you look at the picture from the previous post, there isn't a whole lot of room to begin with. Double the size of the old table and that becomes a problem. The new table really sucks up a lot of real estate. Its not a tiny room, but we also have a TV, coffee table and small couch in there. Second problem is with my light. The light that I have now is one of those that has a vise that attaches to the edge the table and the lamp slides into. Well, it does...sort of. The table is plastic and a slippery and soft one at that. I attached the vise opposite to where I would sit and then inserted the lamp inot the vise. The lamp is so heavy that when I extend the arm to an optimal lighting position the whole thing bent from the vise. I'm sure that the slippery plastic will cause the vise that holds the lamp to slip out. Disaster will result!

I am more sentimental about this old lamp than my old workbench. I've had this lamp for well over 30 years now. It was my Uncle's lamp when he was a graphic artist. They don't make 'em like they used to. That is why its so heavy. I really don't want to get a new one, but I will probably have to find a lamp that is on a pedestal. I could anchor the old lamp at one end of the table, and that way I would not have to extend it very far, but the point is that I want to sit at the middle of the table, not at one end.

I've been thinking of getting one of those OTT lights, but I will try to find a way to better anchor the old light.

Retirement of an Old Friend

2010-06-06T15:02:00.000-04:00

The Old Workhorse

After 16 years of use, I finally decided to retire my old workbench. above, and move up to a larger one.

The old one is a 3' x 3' table that my wife used as a table before we were married. Once we got married, I inherited it as my workbench.

The problem with it is that, first, I'm a slob and there was always a ton of stuff always strewn about it. Second, even if I weren't a slob, there was little room to put paints, storage boxes, etc. Very few things were at my easy reach, and I always ended up with a work space the size of a postage stamp. You can probably figure out where that was on the table based on the concentration and location of paint splatterings.

So, I bought a 6' folding table. It is long enough to put more storage boxes and drawers on top of it, and I plan to have some plastic storage drawers on either side of me.

Not Much New

2010-06-03T12:47:00.001-04:00

I went home to Chicago to visit family. I had hoped to have another game using my 1/600 jets. I had more of them painted and, I had carefully re-read the rules. However, the game never happened. Also, in my haste, I forgot to bring those plastic miniatures for my nephew.

While there, I did buy some figures at Games Plus to help Big Karl and Bambi fight off the machine hoards. Also, some much wanted AA weaponry from C-in-C arrived while I was gone. Much to do, little time to do it.

Machines of War

2010-05-17T19:29:00.000-04:00

Other than working on some Shipbucket drawings ( 5 minutes here, 5 minutes there), I have done NOTHING related to wargaming! Recently, my daughter went into the arms manufacturing business. Here is the results of her LEGO brick building. From the Marine Division:

The Eleven Ship

I have no idea why its called the "Elven Ship." There weren't 10 previous ships. Here is the various features labeled:

A) surveillance system. At the end of each pole is an eye. The eyes can look around in all directions for the enemy. B) the anchor (just go with it). C) treasure chest, with actual LEGO gold pieces in it! D) storage for marshmallows. E) the big sword. I guess its a sort of ram. F) the steering wheel. The boys in R&D might have to go back to the drawing board on that one. If you notice, the helmsman must be in the water to operate it. G) the ship's water supply in form of stacked water bottles. H) the bubble-spinner-cannon. This shoots out deadly bubbles in all directions. Maybe a form of anti-aircraft defense?

Next up, from the Land Division:

The 15th Monster

I thought this was some sort of battle-wheelbarrow, but I was told it is a monster truck. I am not exactly how it works. Maybe its a prototype.

A Magnificant Obsesssion

2010-04-19T15:37:00.000-04:00

Lately, I've been so swamped with work and family activities that I have had little time to sit down and work on anything. The nice thing about my earlier post on making the bamboo forests is that they were very quick and easy to do. How to soothe those primal hobby urges? Answer: Shipbucket! If you haven't been there, check it out! These folks digitally draw warships of all nations and time periods, but focus on WWII to Modern. They are sticklers for details and accuracy, but the results show up in superbly-rendered ship illustrations.

Well, I took the plunge. I wanted to do some illustrations for my Gambusia campaign. I have not done much yet, but here is the results so far. These are before and after pictures:

Imperial Class Corvette

Above is my original drawing of a modern corvette built by Northern Chalupistan. It was done in Adobe Illustrator. Nothing too exciting. One big problem is that I just slapped radar antennae all over the thing. I had no clue about the types of radar that are needed. I really had to research my radars for my first rendering of my corvette in Shipbucket style:

The folks on the Shipbucket forum pointed out various things that could be done to make it better. First,they mentioned that ships of this size are not big enough for anti-sub warfare, so I got rid of the torpedo tubes, and added an extra gun. The SSMs were oriented in such a way that the sailors would be unable to walk around them! They also suggested a SAM instead of the rear 20mm AA gun. So, then the ship evolved into this:

Making shipbucket illustrations is a little like building a highly detailed model. The nice thing is that I can work on them anywhere and anytime I have a chance. Will this replace minis? No way, but it is fun and challenging to do.

The Story So Far

2010-04-16T08:30:00.000-04:00

DISCLAIMERS: All of this is just fictitious silliness and I do not endorse war. The nations and events are made up just for the purposes of moving small, miniatures around a table to pretend to blow each other up for juvenile fun.

The Second Chalupistan War has been rather slow so far. Between my schedule, which is always bad in during the spring semester (it doesn't help that I am now the head of my department), and my friend Karl's (who was the only person I could recruit for this pbem campaign), there has not been a whole lot going on. Here is a summary of events:

Date	Time (hrs)	Event
7/17/07		1 RF-5 TigerEye recon fighter of the 11^th Squadron of the SCAF is shot down just north of the Central Highlands province by a NCAF MiG 21 while attempting to photograph rebel bases in Northern territory.
3/20/08		After a vote by the UN Security Council failed to bring sanctions to Southern Chalupastan for the incursion into the Northern Chalupistan's airspace last fall, the Northern Chalupistan ambassador to the UN gives a fiery speech at the General Assembly, condemning both the United States and Southern Chalupastan. He then spits on the floor and storms out of the General Assembly room. There is stunned silence for at least 5 minutes. Later that day, Northern Chalupastan Minister of the Interior announces that all American and Southern Chalupastan citizens currently in Northern Chalupistan must leave the country in 24 hours. Anyone remaining will be consider a spy and held for questioning.
Now (Day 1)	900	A jet liner carrying the Prime Minister of Northern Chalupastan explodes just as it was landing in the South's capital, Chalupa City, on a historical diplomatic mission. Many on ground are killed or seriously injured, including the Viceroy of Southern Chalupastan and top government officials. At that same time, an airliner bound to the Southern city of Nopales explodes as it is about to land. Fortunately, there were no casualties on the ground.
Day 1	1030	2 Kfir C7s of the 1^st Squadron of the SCAF were shot down over waters southeast of coastal city of Puerto Anguila while intercepting Northern naval attack aircraft consisting of 2 Saab Gripen jet fighters and 3 Dassault Super Etendard attack fighters of the 1^st Naval Squadron from the aircraft carrier NCS Roc.
Day 1	1100	Chalupa City is bombed by Super Entendard attack bombers. Damages include the Viceroy’s palace, parliament building, a hospital, and a railroad station.
Day 1	1200	The NCS Roc (location unknown) radar contact detects a surface vessel about 20 miles north of the carrier traveling east. By 1245 hrs, it turns and heads north out of radar contact. The Roc's captain radios Northern Supreme HQ for orders, but there is no response.
Day 1	1400	NCS Roc launches a KA-27 helicopter to make visual contact with ship and identify the unknown ship.
Day 1	1420	The KA-27 makes contact, and ship identifies itself as the Japanese fishing trawler Namazu Sabiki. Another call gets a response from Northern Supreme HQ. Orders are to watch the ship and to attack it only if it makes a hostile response.

We are still on Day 1 of the campaign. The most recent miniatures gaming was the air combat game that I reported about in an earlier post. I am still waiting for the OOB of the Northern Army for Karl's invasion of Southern Chalupastan, dubbed Operation: Ike & Tina.

"One that looks nice...and is not too expensive."

2010-04-02T15:47:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago, maybe it was longer, there was a posting on the message board of TMP (not to be confused with TMZ) about making micro-scale bamboo forests. How to make them are are at the TwoThreeSixMM blog. The motive behind them was to have a really dense stand that was hard for troops to get through. They are quick and easy and come out looking really nice. Being that my micro armor campaign takes place in a tropic/semi-tropic setting, these would be good to have on the battlefields. My own version uses small nails, which may be too thick, but still look pretty good:

1" Nails embedded in thick cardboard

I first snipped off the bottoms of the nails with a heavy-duty pair of pliers. I drilled some small holes into thick cardboard and then glued them on with super glue. I varied the dimensions of the cardboard.

Nails and base after painting

I then painted them a light brown. Yeah, bamboo is supposed to be green when alive, but this seems to look better. Once dry, I then flocked. The first one, I actually made each tree individually and then glued them on, one at a time (Old World craftsmanship), but that took forever, plus I couldn't really tell one from another in terms of foliage. So, for the next one, I just poured on the superglue over the tops of the nails and dunked the whole thing in to the flocking material.

Here is the finished product:

Forest after flocking

I also used pins with the big plastic heads on them. Here is the result of that method:

In a lot of ways, the pin-trees look better than the nail-trees, but it was faster to make the nail trees. I might do some more pin-trees. I'll use both....two different species of bamboo. They still need to have some sort of ground cover, but they are fine for now.

New Project Updates

2010-03-29T07:45:00.000-04:00

Unfortunately, I have no pictures. My schedule for the last month has not been pretty. Nonetheless, I've managed to squeeze in some work on this and that:

1. Bamboo forests: I got this fantastic idea to make dense bamboo forests off somebody's blog. You'd think I would have bookmarked it, but N-o-o-o! Anyway, its a simple method using small nails for the trees, sticking close together into thick cardstock, and then gluing flock on top of them all once they are painted. I can to a bunch of these in about an hour.

2. 28mm: Trying to figure out what the heck am I going to do with the 28mm bikers and the robots. I ordered some various figures to round out the human resistance. I also found buried in my unpainted pile a pack of some Kryomek aliens from Scotia-Grendel. I have those guys primed and just trying to think of what to paint them. Maybe I will have some sort of free-for-all games. I have some ideas for rules, but I will likely use Chain Reaction from Two Hour Wargames.

3. Minis for my nephew: My sister's younger son has some emotional issues including a form of Tourette's syndrome. He is not autistic, but sort of lives in his own little world. Last year, for Christmas, I bought him some little plastic figures from Games Workshop. He had a blast painting them. I recently ordered a bunch of plastic futuristic soldiers from eM-4 and will send them to him to paint up.

4. 1/300 buildings: I have two on hold that I need to finish, plus I need to get the Zwieback Hotel done.

And now for some griping....

2010-03-08T09:50:00.000-05:00

Lately....lately as in the last three years, I've become somewhat of a rules junkie. I think I am looking for the holy grail of rules for all games modern: land, sea, and air. Recently, I came across a set of rules that sounded intriguing.

"I must have them!" I cried.

Well, maybe not, and here is the gripe. They rules themselves are not unreasonable in price, but it was the cost of shipping. The shipping cost was more than the cost of the rules themselves! And it wasn't like they were overseas, either. I kept mentally factoring in postage of a larger-than-letter parcel, plus maybe gas to drive to the post office, etc. Despite all that, I couldn't see the cost being so high. So, as much as I wanted to, I will have to say no to them, until the author of the rules gets a better distributor and/or brings the shipping price goes down.

This is sort of unusual because compared to other businesses that ship their goods through the mail, gaming companies seem to have reasonable shipping costs. For example, I use a lot of technical drawing pens for my research. I have to draw illustrations of the specimens that I study. These pens are expensive, but they weigh about the same as ball-point pen, in fact probably less given they are hallow inside (you have to fill them yourself with ink). Nonetheless, on-line art companies charge same high amount for shipping for these little pens as they do for about a pound of art paper. Why this disparity? It because they base the shipping on the cost of the item, not the weight! To me, they are double-charging you for the item. Unfortunately, good art supply stores around where I live are about as rare as wargaming shops, i.e. non-existent. Its, just my opinion here, but if a company wants repeat business, they are not going to get it by doing things like that.

Karl and Bambi completed

2010-02-27T15:31:00.000-05:00

So, here's Humankind's last hope against the machines....

Big Karl and Bambi

Karl and his little friend

Bambi showing off her assets

I decided on the desert theme for their bases. Bambi's cactus was make out of sculpy. The first version of it had tiny pin pricks in it to look like where the spines came out. It looked cool, but it got badly burned while baking. So, in my "f--k it!" mood, I just made the second one without them.

Karl's rattlesnake was twisted copper wire. The head was a tiny piece of wood that I glued on. Rattlesnake heads should not be that long, but it popped off a couple of times while I was trying to reduce the length, so, I didn't want to mess with it anymore.

Originally, I was going to glue sand directly onto the base. I tried it but the grains looked too big plus they easily chipped off regardless of what glue I used. So, I used the same technique that I have been using for my 1/300 buildings. A combination of paint and baking soda. I also mixed in a little bit of sand to give it more texture.

Karl and Bambi painted, but.....

2010-02-22T10:38:00.000-05:00

.....I have not finished off their bases. Two possibilities:

a. Give them the same slag motif as the terminators.

b. I was thinking of a desert motif. Sand, rocks, shrubs. Maybe
a cactus and/or rattlesnake out of sculpy.

I am leaning toward (b), but have not completely made up my mind.

Rise of the (Tiny) Machines...the Fab Five

2010-02-20T11:58:00.001-05:00

I finished them off. I added some skulls to give a pizazz. I was going to paint the skulls bone color, but I just painted them white. I then gave a good washing of my acrylic floor wax/black ink mixture, and let dry.

It was a nice sunny day (for once!), so I took the boys out for a photo shoot.

Quick Pics of Infantry

2010-02-13T22:22:00.000-05:00

I thought I'd take some pictures of some Northern Chalupistan infantry:

Two batteries of 120mm mortars

Medium recoilless rifle team

Two D30 122mm howitzer batteries

The figures from the top two pictures are Scotia modern Russian infantry, with French mortars and their "neutral" line of medium recoilless rifles. The D30 122mm howitzers plus crew are from Heroics & Ros modern Russians. Navwar used to make them, but not any more.

I took a lot more pictures than these, but they are pretty bad and no amount of Photoshop magic could save them. My big problem is lighting. The only time I get to take pictures of my minis is at night, and I don't have good lighting for this. These are the three that were the most presentable.

Rise of the (Tiny) Machines...Part 2

2010-01-30T18:49:00.000-05:00

Today, I managed to finish two of the robots that I got from eM-4 Miniatures.

Meet Boris and Terrance

I spray-painted them with Krylon brand chrome silver. I was hoping that that the spray paint would have given them a really high gloss, but that didn't really happen. I don't think it was all that much shinier than if I used a good hobby paint. I then mixed up a batch of Future floor finish with some india ink. Unlike some others who use this technique, I NEVER dilute with water!
I washed them with about three coats of the mixture, then let dry. The weapons were painted with gunmetal blue and gray.

Terrance looking pensive

Boris looking determined

Painting them was the easy part. What took me a long time was what to do with the bases. I am not a big fan of putting a lot of effort into the bases. To me, the focus of the miniature is the miniature. But, I figured that I might as well do something more than just paint and flock it. I have this big tube of caulk from a recent home improvement project. It seemed like it was just going to go to waste. So, I squished some out onto a piece of cardboard and then smeared it onto the bases. On boris, I stuck some junk on there: a piece of metal, a strip of cardboard, and a cut piece of a straw. Once dried, I painted it and then hit is with my Future-ink wash. In the flash forward scenes in the Terminator movies (I haven't seen the latest one), the ground cover is all a gray, like everything is covered with thick dust. I wanted it to look all slaggy, and everything in a gray. I didn't seem to turn out too bad.

Born To Be Wild

2010-01-22T08:05:00.000-05:00

Along with the Terminator-like robots, I bought two bikers from eM-4 to futilely try to fight the mechanical hoards. Like the 'bots, they are pre-primed.

"Karl"
eM-4 0064 male biker w/ SMG & chain

This guy looks a little like a beefier version of my friend Karl...with less hair. He also seems like he would be the leader of the biker gang. By his expression, he is not going to go down without a fight. In addition to looking for trouble, he has a passion for Chicago-style, Italian beef sandwiches.

"Bambi"
eM-4 0066 Female biker w/SMG

No biker-gang leader should be without his old woman at his side. She looks pretty tough and wild, yet smart. Maybe its the cool shades. She probably does the books at Karl's motorcycle repair shop. I could name her after Karl's ex-wife, but instead, I'll just call her Bambi.

The rest of the biker gang can be seen on their website.

Rise of the (Tiny) Machines

2010-01-14T14:12:00.000-05:00

I got these robots from eM-4 Miniatures.

0331 Skeletal Robot. MAR

0329 Skeletal Robot. Assault Cannon

0328 Skeletal Robot. Rotary Cannon

Not that I have scoured the universe, but these guys look closest to the cyborgs sans their outer flesh from the Terminator movie franchise than any other manufacturer. Another nice thing about them is that they are pre-primed. Not sure how I'm going to paint them, nor what I am going to do with them, but they were too cool to pass up.

Happy New Year!

2010-01-05T09:56:00.000-05:00

Well, nothing went according to plan. The big blizzard along the mid-Atlantic seaboard affected us, and we couldn't get out of Tennessee until the 22nd. Christmas was a tad stressful. I didn't get a chance to call my pal Karl and my older nephew was being a bit of a snit. So, no gaming occurred last week. I did manage to go to a local gaming store.

Now I am back home and scrambling to: 1) finish a manuscript revision before the Wednesday deadline, 2) do some much needed repairs on some baseboards in our living room, 3) the usual administrative "stuff" for school, and 4) try to get my courses squared away in time for classes, which start next Monday. Yuck!

Big Gaming Plans for the Holidays

2009-12-18T15:28:00.000-05:00

Ahem.....probably not. We go and visit my family up north in Chicago on Sunday. My father isn't doing too well lately, so despite the miserable weather that has just hit us here in eastern Tennessee, we are determined to go. I will probably bring all of my 1/600 aircraft with to have another duel with my nephew against my friend Karl. I will try to make sure that we stick closer to the rules this time. I'm sure Karl will fuss about that!

Dwelling on modern air combat rules, AirWar: C21 in particular, I noticed that in order to successfully target in on an opponent, you have to slow down. That doesn't make sense, does it? Or, are we not following the rules properly? Something that I missed? Well, all the more reason to re-read the rules while in Chicago.

Lately, I've really had the bug to start sculpting. I guess I've had it for awhile but there have been a micro-flurry of postings on a Yahoo sculpting group on 6mm sculpting. It really gave me the bug. But, like everything else, will I find the time? Odds are no. The other night, by 5-year-old daughter asked me what I wanted for Christmas. I told her some time to work on my soldiers. She said that I could, so long as neither she nor my wife were home. Then it was OK.

Grading...grading...grading...

2009-12-08T22:11:00.000-05:00

It is the last week of the semester before final exams. I have been siting in my office for hours now, doing nothing but get caught up on grading. I have not had the time to grade various tests, so there was a major backlog. Our department just finished a job search, and it really burned me out. When I step back from it all, it doesn't seem like it was a tremendous amount of work. Its not like I've been digging ditches for a month straight. But, it still seems draining.

About the only thing I've done, hobby-wise, is primed a bunch of 1/600 jets that I recently ordered. I've started using gesso as a primer. It seems to dry a lot thinner than a spray primer. My only worry is that since it is an acrylic, it might easily rub off.

Camouflage Confusion

2009-11-23T13:52:00.000-05:00

The GHQ of Northern Chalupistan cannot seem to decide on standardized camouflage colors or patterns:

T-54's on the move (C-in-C R-15)

T-72 (C-in-C R-60)

Originally, I was going to paint them Russian green, but it seemed to dark and dry brushing was not very successful. So, I thought to try various camo patterns. I have yet to find something I like. The antennae are not positioned where they should be on Russian tanks, but I couldn't drill a good hole at where they are supposed to be, which is on the turret's side.

Update

2009-11-16T16:16:00.001-05:00

Behold, the Map!

This beast took forever to do. As I said in my last post, it was mostly the numbering of the hexes that took up the time. I found out recently that Adobe Illustrator has some sort of macro function to speed up things like this, but I didn't know this until I was just about done.

Now, I am making a set of campaign rules for Karl, who is playing Northern Chalupistan. It is being cobbled together by using the scales of the various rules that I will be using and fitting it to the above map. I am still trying to decide if I am going to go with one set of rules for each type of warfare (air, land, sea), or just use whatever depending on my whim. I am pretty sure that I will use AirWar: C21 for air combat, but I have several options for land and naval warfare.

Campaign Map Finished

2009-11-03T15:16:00.000-05:00

I finally got my campaign map of the continent finished. The final touch was to number all of the hexes. Man, that was a lot of work!

Too Tired for Words

2009-10-28T21:48:00.000-04:00

Am I the only one who does this?

Since I've been "promoted" to the chair of my department, its been a non-stop administrative ride. I compare it to those colored pencils that the girls in grade school used to have. There were several lead points in them of different colors. You pulled one out and stuck into the back end, and a new lead of a different color popped out at the front end. That is how I feel about my job. I get one task just finished and another task pops out. Between that, and home life, I get very little time to work on my gaming stuff. However, I spend a lot of time dwelling on gaming. For example, I spent most of today's long faculty meeting daydreaming about finishing another building I've been working on.

Yet, when I can devote my time to my projects, I don't! My golden opportunity arises, and I pass it up.

To make things short, I long to do something when I can't, but when I do have the time, I don't.

Thor's Thumbprints

2009-10-23T16:57:00.001-04:00

I quickly made this little viking longship for my daughter. Most of it is out of polymer clay, with the yard out of a copper wire and the sail out of paper. I still have to paint it, and I will probably glue some thread on as rigging. Note the large fingerprints...clearly fashioned by the Norse gods!

Sticky Turrets

2009-10-23T15:18:00.000-04:00

GHQ's micro armor is great, but the one annoying thing about them is the pin that holds the turret to the body of the tank. They are tiny nubbins. The slightest bump on the battlefield and they fall off:

Chinese Type 63 Light Tank (GHQ RC3)

There have been a number of posts on various sites including GHQ's rare earth magnets have replaced the tiny posts. So, I thought I'd give it a try.

I used rare earth magnets from K&J Magnetics. I use these to mount my aircraft. They have a huge variety to choose from and have very good service.

I sniped off the post and then tried to drill the hole. At first I used my old trusty pin vise, but the drill bit was too large for it, so I ended up buying a whopper of a pin vise. This thing could do some serious hurt'n in the wrong hands!

I drilled a hole in the turret and then widened and deepened the hole on the body of the tank:

You need to make sure its deep enough especially on the turret so that the magnet is at least flush with the bottom of the turret, otherwise the turret will sit at an odd angle on the body. I then glued the magnets in. Make sure the polarities are opposite.

As you can see, the magnet in the turret is a little off center. But, it seems to sit OK on the body, and nothing looks odd when you turn the turret.

Flight Stands for 1/600 Aircraft

2009-10-08T15:33:00.000-04:00

I recently decided to conduct all of my air battles for the Gambusian Campaign using 1/600 aircraft. There are only two manufacturers out there, but they are really covering a lot of modern aircraft. After experimenting with different ways of mounting them on stands, I came across one that I think will work well using LEGOs. I sort of thought about this method awhile ago, but then came across a thread on TMP where a person explained his technique. Below is what I ended up using:

I ordered from the LEGO "pick-a-brick" online shop where you can order individual pieces (A-C). For the posts, I use clear cylindrical LEGO bricks (B & C). One brick has a rare earth magnet stuck in that happened to be the same diameter as the hole at the top of the cylinder (C). This brick is to hold the airplane to the stand. To glue in the magnet, I tried superglue formulated for car windows, but it frosted up the brick the same way normal superglue does. I ended up using a while glue that claimed to dry clear. It did. The airplane also has a rare earth magnet on it that I glued on using superglue (D). Make sure you roughen the spot on the airplane where you are to glue down the magnet. It helps hold it a lot. The base of the stand (A) is a parabolic disk that you can get from LEGO. There are different sizes, the larger size works the best. The result looks like this:

The cylinders come in several different colors and in a transparent blue as well. They can pop on and off fairly easily if you play a game were changes in altitude is necessary. I think the base I use is large enough to accomodate larger planes like bomber. !/600 scale aircraft are not all that heavy! I need to order more bricks and bases and figure out what to use to make air-to-air missiles that are flying to their target.

Update & Work in Progress

2009-10-04T15:35:00.000-04:00

I've been swamped this semester, more so now that I am the chair of my department. Its not like I've had much time in the past, now it seems like time is in the negative territory! Plus, there seems to be plenty of family activities that are going on...not that I am complaining about those! On the up side, I recently saw two journal articles in print. This is what little I've done lately:

1. I've started working on my 1/600 aircraft for my Chalupastan campaign. I only painted a few of them for the battle I had this summer with Karl and my nephew. I am also mounting them on bases using LEGO pieces. This was something I had thought of, but someone else put into action on the miniaturespage.com. I hope to take some pictures soon.

2. The plans for the Ziewback Motel are coming along very slowly. Once I decide what the back side that you don't see looks like, I will print it out on cardstock and then proceed.

3. I've been experimenting with mounting the turrets of some of my microarmor with small rare earth magnets. The problem with GHQ microarmor, especially their modern stuff, it they have the tiniest of nubbins to hold the turret onto the body. Again, posts on the miniaturespage.com suggested using tiny rare earth magnets. The problem has been how to mount the magnet. I have routed out the hole on the body and cut off the nubbin on the turret and made a hole for the other magnet. Unfortunately, the pinvise that I have can't acomodate the size of the drill bit. I couldn't drill a deep enough hole into the turret. When I glued in the magnets, they stuck out too much and look funny. I am waiting on a order for a larger pinvise to drill a bigger hole.

4. I joined an online battle using some rules called Combat Storm. If I can't game with anyone around here, I might as well on the internet. The problem is that I don't have time to go and check the website to play. They started yesterday, and I've only had the chance to check in this afternoon. I hope I don't have to back out of it, but I would feel bad if I held up the game.

Building the Zwieback Motel Part 1

2009-09-23T09:59:00.000-04:00

I gotta say that my favorite books as a child were those of Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel). I loved everything about them. In addition to the stories and the characters, were the fantastic contraptions and architecture of this strange and wonderful universe. One of the joys of being a parent is that I get to re-read all of my old Dr. Seuss books to my young daughter.

One of my favorites was Dr. Seuss's Sleep Book (1962). There isn't much of a story other than it is a long-running news report on various people and creatures going to sleep. As the "story" goes along, it keeps tallying up how many creatures are asleep. At the end, it includes the reader as part of the tally. I guess the idea is to make the reader sleepier as he reads it. The inside cover even states that, "This Book is to be Read in Bed." It is very entertaining.

Anyway, one report is on the infamous Zwieback Motel, whose beds are so uncomfortable that you really have to be tired to fall asleep there. It does not appear to be a very big hotel. It looks like it can hold about five customers (all of whom seem to be very blissfully sleeping according to the illustration). I thought that it would be fun to build a model of the hotel.

I am planning to build it in 1/300 scale. One of the problems is that building in Dr. Seuss' universe are not exactly symmetrical or rectilinear. Its going to be quite a challenge. Also, I have no idea what the hotel looks like from behind. I am going to use cardstock for the building and see where that goes. Currently, I am drawing up that plans on Adobe Illustrator. I will post updates as it progresses.

Columbian Meat Chopper

2009-09-10T09:00:00.000-04:00

In the 1990's, the Columbian army converted some US M20 scout cars into AA/fire support vehicles by putting the Maxson M45 quadmount. This is an electrically-powered turret that had four 50-cal heavy machine guns on it and seen on the US M16 Multiple Gun Motor Carriage halftrack. I decided to make my own:

I used C in C M8 Greyhound armored car (US-30) and M16 halftrack (US-38). The quadmount from the halftrack fit perfectly into the hole for the M8's turret. I glued the quadmounts in with superglue. A very simple conversion.

Armored Car Conversion

2009-08-26T08:48:00.000-04:00

I seem to have bad luck with C-in-C's French ERC-90 Sagaie armored cars (F-10). An earlier order of Sagaies that I got had the turretless mystery tank in it that turned out to be a WWII Japanese tank. A more recent order had a Sagaie model that was missing most of its 90 mm gun. I thought about replacing the nub of a gun with a piece of wire or pin. But, then I thought, "lets get creative." The result is this:

Its is a command vehicle (as if you couldn't tell!). I left off the turret and built a superstructure out of cardboard. I then cut and shaped it to angle the sides. The angles looked a little better before I tried smoothing them down with fine sand paper. This rounded off the angles of the superstructure more than I wanted. The window covers and hatches were also made of thin cardstock. Next time I do something like this, I will use styrene plastic.

Here is a shot of an unconverted ERC-90:

The dude manning the light machinegun is from GHQ's seated WWII US armored infantry pack (US53). Please pretend that the big pipe sticking out the back is a radio antenna....please!

The New House on the Block

2009-08-25T13:30:00.000-04:00

It took me awhile, but I finally finished this building:

It is a little more Mediterranean in style than my previous buildings. I got the inspiration from some "pretty pictures" site on the web. I am not crazy about the balcony on the third floor and I should have added a little more height to the top floor.

I have several building projects in mind, including a fuel storage facility, a market area, and something along the lines of Dr. Seuss!

A COIN For Your Thoughts

2009-08-17T09:03:00.000-04:00

Scotia Grendel (http://www.scotiagrendel.com) makes several interesting minis of weapons systems that never got beyond prototype stage. For example, they have a 1/300 model of the Brazilian Osorio MBT (BZ3). A tank for export that no one bought. It doesn't even seem like the Brazilian Army used it. Another example is the Cavalier Mustang III from their Collectair line (CAUM10). It was to be sold to nations for COIN operations, but went nowhere. Here is one I painted up for Southern Chalupastan:

I added the spinning propeller by cutting out a piece of clear plastic. The rocket pods were made by cutting down a toothpick and rounding off the tip. I then painted on where the rocket tubes exited. There was no way I could carve them out.

Pre-Prototype of a Car in 1/300

2009-08-03T16:04:00.001-04:00

Here is my first attempt at a scratch-built car in 1/300 scale:

Its supposed to be a Volvo C30. I make a chassis out of thin cardstock and then used a mixture of FIMO an Sculpy III polymer clay for the body and wheels. Not great, but ya gotta start somewhere, right?

Air Battle

2009-07-01T14:58:00.001-04:00

While visiting family in Chicago, I had a jet fighter game using Wessex Games’ AirWar: C21, second edition.

It was my friend Karl vs. my nephew Kyle and me. The night before, Kyle and I had a practice game so that he could have some understanding of the rules. Karl and I had a game but about two years ago using the first edition rules.

The scenario had Karl escorting two, heavily loaded Super Etendard strike fighters with two Saab Gripens. He had to get his Super Etendards to the other side of the table. Our mission was to prevent that. One of his pilots was rated a veteran, the other regular. Kyle and I flew Kfir C7 jets. The jets were armed with the missile listed in the AW: C21 Data Annex. Kyle and I had four heat-seeking missiles apiece, whereas Karl had two heat seekers, plus four radar-guided missiles.

I didn’t take pictures of the game because many of the planes were not painted. It was a complete victory for Karl. He managed to shoot down both of our Kfirs and get his two Super Etendards off the table. A few times we lost opportunities to do some harm to Karl’s planes. For example, early in the game, I could have lined up a good shot at one of Karl’s Super Etendards, but I forgot to slow my speed and over shot the plane. Karl managed to stall one of his planes twice, but we failed to take advantage of that. Kyle managed to hit one of the Super Etendards, but scored only a single hit off of a D10 die roll! Also, I overlooked some things in the rules that might have made a difference. First, I failed to notice the a statement in the rules that says that jets that launch radar-guided missiles need to keep their target in sight once launched. Karl’s became fire-and-forget missiles. Second, we didn’t use the critical hits table, which might have made Kyle’s hit more of a success. Third, we didn’t take advantage of the tailing rule. That might have also made a difference.

It is hard to critique the rules since these are the only other air warfare rules I have played with (I won’t count the old AH Richthofen’s War board game). They are pretty well written, and fairly clear. Things that I missed were more my own fault than anything else. My only criticism is with the turning, and it’s not a biggie. In the first edition, you turned your plane in 60 degree increments (or is it 30? I can’t remember). The more maneuverable your plane, the more 60 degree increments you could turn in a phase. In the second edition, there is a compass-like template with the turn radii labeled. It was a little trickier to make the turns exact. For example, when you are making a 30-degree turn, is your model really turned 30 degrees, or is it 35 degrees, or is it 27 degrees? In other words, there was a little more “slop” to our turns. But, as I said, it was not a big deal...I am not a rules lawyer.

Despite our loss, it was a fun time all around. Next time, I will make up some rules crib sheets for the players that will highlight some of the critical aspects of some of the rules.

"We are experiencing technical difficulties beyond our control..."

2009-05-28T11:03:00.000-04:00

The various rebel groups that plague the Central Highlands region of Gambusia are always in need of some transportation and firepower. Transportation is easy...you walk. But what about some extra firepower for dealing with government troops? Answer: technicals. Here are some that I have made:

Above we have a GMC pickup truck (Navwar CM4) painted in a civilian red (BTW, it seems like a lot of my civilian vehicles are red...must be a popular color in Gambusia). With the addition of various weapons, we have our pickup truck technicals:

On the left, I added a Russian AA machine gun (C-in-C ACC-19) to the Navwar CM4. On the right, I added a German 20mm AA gun (Navwar FK-20). I deliberately left off a figure manning the AAMG. The figures with the appropriate pose have military uniforms, which I didn't want with a rebel.

GHQ is making some nice vehicles for their Third World Warriors series. Above is an unpainted GHQ TW7 Toyota technical with DsHK MG. As always, very nice sculpt.

I've also converted some various trucks into technicals:

The truck on the right is a Scotia FM29 VLRA Light Truck without any weapons on it. Its nice because its got a wide cargo area and no top on the cab. On the left is one with a 50 cal heavy machine gun mounted on it (C-in-C ACC-4).

On the left, I added a medium (106mm?) Scotia NE25 recoilless rifle from their neutral equipment range. On the right, I added a WWII German 37mm Flak 43 AA gun (Navwar G118).

On the left, WWII US 1 1/2-ton truck (C-in-C US-21) with a spare 106mm recoilless rifle leftover from a GHQ Ontos (VN25). On the right, WWII US 3/4-ton 4x4 Dodge gun portee (C-in-C US-17) with another medium recoilless rifle from Scotia. The gun portee worked really well; the 1 1/2-ton truck, not so much. It seems very low to the ground as compared to the other vehicles. Oh well, I guess its the "low-rider" version.

Finally, we have this funny duck....

I had ordered some French armored cars from C-in-C. Out of four vehicles in the box, three were the armored cars, but one was a light tank missing its turret. I am guessing its a WWII Japanese Type 95 Kyu-Go tank. After much soul searching, I glued on a MG turret from a OT64 SKOT 2A Polish APC (C-in-C P-3). The rebels probably found the tank rusting in someone's barn. They restored it to running condition and replaced the original turret with the MG turret due to a lack of proper ammunition for its 37mm gun. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Projects in the Works

2009-05-07T14:41:00.000-04:00

Here are some things I am currently working on:

1. Cleaning up my workbench. I am not known as a neat-freak! I am in the process of doing a major cleaning.

2. My first scratch-built model. For a long time, I've wanted to make my own stuff (long time as in since the 70s). Not just modifying things, or building a house or tree, but my own from-scratch gaming pieces. I am in the process of building an Embraer EMB 314 Super Tucano tuboprop trainer in 1/300.

3. Painting a 28mm warrior-fairy for my daughter. I haven't done work like this in awhile. The eyes and the hands just ain't what they used to be.

A Room with a View

2009-04-22T09:28:00.000-04:00

For my Gambusian campaign, I needed some buildings to represent larger urban areas. I still have not completely decided on what sort of architectural styles abound on the continent. I built this small building as a generic urban dwelling:

I built it out of Sculpy polymer clay and hence, it has a rather warped look. The windows are out of cardstock. Not the greatest building, but from a distance, it doesn’t look too horrible. The problem is that its sort of pain to cut the slabs of sculpy to make the walls of the buildings. Oh sure, they look nice initially, but when you even start to move them, the corners warp. It was also a lot of work to bevel the corners evenly to glue the corners together. So, I think this will be last of my 6mm sculpy buildings.

Recently, I ran across Matakishi's Tea House (http://www.matakishi.com). It is an excellent site where the author has a lot of how-to stuff. He is very good at going step-by-step in how things are done, which really helps a lot. One of his projects is a how-to on building generic Middle Eastern buildings. He even provides the plans. Here is my take on them:

These buildings are modified from his plans. His are for 28mm scale. Also, they are built so that you can stick your troops inside. So, there was a lot of reduction in size. I am never too good at getting my proportions right. I think my buildings suffer from scale creep. My trees seem to come out that way, too, but that is for another entry.

Here is the first one I made:

I used Adobe Illustrator to reduce the size, and to adjust for the fact that I won’t be putting figures inside the building. The windows and doors are made out of sculpy. There is some warping on some of the windows, but it’s minimal. Besides, we’re talking “developing nation” here. To get a sort of adobe effect on walls of this building and the following, I took craft paint and mixed it with some baking powder. It gave the rough texture. You need to paint fast because the baking powder dries the paint quickly.

This first apartment looks cool with the balcony wrapped around the two sides of the building, but it was very tricky to pull off. So, I got lazy and put the balcony only on side of the second building. Besides, the tenants pay lower rent at this apartment:

Again, same methods. I got a little fancier with the doors and even tried my hand at building a dormer for the top floor apartment.

The third building is more of a shop or restaurant:

The awning outside the shop is just a piece of paper held up by segments of wire. I didn’t intend for the building to be this dark a brown. It seemed to darken a little when I mixed it with the baking soda. The building’s walls look rougher than the others because I let the paint-baking soda mixture dry a little more before application, and I think I added more baking soda than on the other two. One nice thing is that the mixture also works as filler and can cover up some gaps between cardstock and can smooth out edges a little bit.

Defending the Northern Skies

2009-04-07T20:19:00.000-04:00

Ever since the "line of death" incident occurred in the summer of 2007 in which a Northern Chalupistan MiG-21 (flown by the now commander-in-chief General L. Alliruhc) shot down a Southern Northrop F5E, the North has been on a constant state of high alert. The North has deployed various AA defenses.

A SA-6 Gainful AA missiles (C in C R-86) with its Straight Flush control radar vehicle (C in C R-87)

Northern militia man a ZU-23-2 23mm AA guns (Heroics & Ros SM-48) mounted on a slightly modified Scotia RM81 Zil-131 heavy truck (at least I think it is).

A Blast from the Past

2009-03-27T15:36:00.000-04:00

Here is an example of my earlier painting skills:

It is a Ral Partha magic-user figure. I made a quick look through the web to see if I could find the catalog number, but no such luck. Ral Partha was probably my favorite miniatures company. I still have some of their early ones from the 70s. I was really bummed out when they went out of business.